rename_column :table, :old_column, :new_column
You'll probably want to create a separate migration to do this. (Rename FixColumnName
as you will.):
script/generate migration FixColumnName
# creates db/migrate/xxxxxxxxxx_fix_column_name.rb
Then edit the migration to do your will:
# db/migrate/xxxxxxxxxx_fix_column_name.rb
class FixColumnName < ActiveRecord::Migration
def self.up
rename_column :table_name, :old_column, :new_column
end
def self.down
# rename back if you need or do something else or do nothing
end
end
For Rails 3.1 use:
While, the up
and down
methods still apply, Rails 3.1 receives a change
method that "knows how to migrate your database and reverse it when the migration is rolled back without the need to write a separate down method".
See "Active Record Migrations" for more information.
rails g migration FixColumnName
class FixColumnName < ActiveRecord::Migration
def change
rename_column :table_name, :old_column, :new_column
end
end
If you happen to have a whole bunch of columns to rename, or something that would have required repeating the table name over and over again:
rename_column :table_name, :old_column1, :new_column1
rename_column :table_name, :old_column2, :new_column2
...
You could use change_table
to keep things a little neater:
class FixColumnNames < ActiveRecord::Migration
def change
change_table :table_name do |t|
t.rename :old_column1, :new_column1
t.rename :old_column2, :new_column2
...
end
end
end
Then just db:migrate
as usual or however you go about your business.
For Rails 4:
While creating a Migration
for renaming a column, Rails 4 generates a change
method instead of up
and down
as mentioned in the above section. The generated change
method is:
$ > rails g migration ChangeColumnName
which will create a migration file similar to:
class ChangeColumnName < ActiveRecord::Migration
def change
rename_column :table_name, :old_column, :new_column
end
end
You won't always be able to simply generate the migration to already have the code you want. You can create an empty migration and then populate it with the code you need.
You can find information about how to accomplish different tasks in a migration here:
http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/Migration.html
More specifically, you can see how to drop a table using the following approach:
drop_table :table_name
Best Answer
If you have already run your original migration (before editing it), then you need to generate a new migration (
rails generate migration add_email_to_users email:string
will do the trick). It will create a migration file containing line:add_column :users, email, string
Then do arake db:migrate
and it'll run the new migration, creating the new column.If you have not yet run the original migration you can just edit it, like you're trying to do. Your migration code is almost perfect: you just need to remove the
add_column
line completely (that code is trying to add a column to a table, before the table has been created, and your table creation code has already been updated to include at.string :email
anyway).