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@yokolet
Created March 24, 2012 00:34
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Rails 3: How to add a new field to an existing database table
Existing schema is below:
ActiveRecord::Schema.define(:version => 20120130161449) do
create_table "movies", :force => true do |t|
t.string "title"
t.string "rating"
t.text "description"
t.datetime "release_date"
t.datetime "created_at"
t.datetime "updated_at"
end
end
To add new field "director" to this schema, I created Migration by:
rails g migration AddDirectorToMovie director:string
The name "AddDirectorToMovie" means much. "Add" creates "change" method in Migration, and "ToMovie" indicates the table concerned about is "movies."
So, I got a migration file, db/migrate/20120323210944_add_director_to_movie.rb whose contents is:
class AddDirectorToMovie < ActiveRecord::Migration
def change
add_column :movies, :director, :string
end
end
One last thing to do is:
rake db:migrate
Now, I have an updated schema.rb:
ActiveRecord::Schema.define(:version => 20120323210944) do
create_table "movies", :force => true do |t|
t.string "title"
t.string "rating"
t.text "description"
t.datetime "release_date"
t.datetime "created_at"
t.datetime "updated_at"
t.string "director"
end
end
Also, I could confirm the "director" field was added on Rails console:
1.9.2p290 :012 > Movie.columns.map {|c| c.name}
=> ["id", "title", "rating", "description", "release_date", "created_at", "updated_at", "director"]
@zachguo
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zachguo commented Aug 19, 2013

Could you please tell me why it doesn't work if I add the change method directly into db/migrate/20111119180638_create_movies.rb?

class CreateMovies < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def up
    create_table :movies do |t|
      t.string :title
      t.string :rating
      t.text :description
      t.datetime :release_date
      t.timestamps
    end
  end

  def change
    add_column :movies, :director, :string
  end

  def down
    drop_table :movies
  end
end

@AWizardIsNeverLate
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Thank you! This worked for me.

@pdhakad
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pdhakad commented Aug 27, 2014

It really works ...

@howardpang28
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thanks!

@dianaaparicio
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thanks! 👍 😄

@LookOnTheBrightSide
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thanks!

@SidMasih
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SidMasih commented Oct 6, 2016

Thank You!

@rchrdchn
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Thank you!

@yourstayonline
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Wooo! Still works on Rails 5.2.3 in 2021!

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