How to Update Column Datatype in Magento 2

Magento Developers…! Are you looking for ways to update column datatype in Magento 2? Follow me till the end of this post to find the solution. ‍

Data is the fuel for online businesses.

Online stores collect a lot of information on the go, and store them as columns in the database. Magento 2 stores the information in different data-types for efficient storage and processing. Some of the common data-types are: text, integer, decimal, boolean, etc.

But, sometimes the existing data-type may not be suitable for storing the information and you may require changing the column data type in Magento 2. There can be multiple instances, such as:

1) The store uses integer data type for storing the product prices (For e.g. $100). However, the client wants to show the product price in decimals in the front end (For e.g. $99.99). In such cases, you need to change the data type of the product price column from integer to decimal in Magento 2.

2) The store uses varchar data-type to store the customer’s address, and you noticed many of the addresses in the database are incomplete. A likely cause of this condition may be the limitation of the varchar data-type to store information. In order to fix this, you need to update column datatype in Magento 2 to text.

Do you relate to the above conditions?

Let’s find out the method to update column datatype in Magento 2.

Method to Change Column DataType in Magento 2

In order to update column datatype in Magento 2, we are going to use the changeColumn() function.

Add the following code to the app/code/Vendor/Extension/Setup/InstallSchema.php or app/code/Vendor/Extension/Setup/UpgradeSchema.php:

$setup->startSetup(); 
$connection = $setup->getConnection(); 
$connection->changeColumn( 
    $setup->getTable('your_table'), 
    'column_name', 
     [ 
       'type' => \Magento\Framework\DB\Ddl\Table::TYPE_TEXT, 
       'length' => 1024, 
       'nullable' => true, 
       'default' => '', 
       'comment' => 'Column Comment' 
     ] 
  ); 
} 
$setup->endSetup();

and yeah…, you are done!

This is how easily you can change DataType of the column in Magento 2.

Got any doubts? Feel free to ask. I’d be glad to help you.

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Thanks for reading.