Laravel 10: new major release

From Laravel 10 on, Artisan becomes more interactive.

For example: you ask to create a model, but you forget to pass the name:

1
php artisan make:model

Instead of giving an error message, Artisan will simply ask you the name of the model, as well as whether you want to create a migration, factory, etc. Very handy!

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
php artisan make:model
 
What should the model be named?
❯ Post
 
  Would you like any of the following? [none]
  none ......................................................................................... 0
  all .......................................................................................... 1
  factory ...................................................................................... 2
  form requests ................................................................................ 3
  migration .................................................................................... 4
  policy ....................................................................................... 5
  resource controller .......................................................................... 6
  seed ......................................................................................... 7

If Laravel 10 drops support for PHP 8.0 and requires at least 8.1, that means two things if you want to upgrade:

    Either switch to PHP 8.1
    Or PHP 8.2

Why are they dropping PHP 8.0 support already? PHP 8.0 has not been in Active support since Nov 26, 2022, so it only falls under Security fixes now. Since Laravel is also no longer working with LTS versions, the vision from Laravel is that they go with the technology currently in the community as best they can. Staying stuck on PHP 8.0 would therefore not fit with their new vision.

You can find the pull request on GitHub: [10.x] Drop PHP 8.0

In an effort to eliminate the need for doctrine/dbal package when using change() to modify columns, a new feature is coming to Laravel 10. This feature will allow developers to use the change() method and modify columns on MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQL Server without the need for any additional packages. This is a significant and risky change, but we do believe it is worth the effort.

To better understand the new feature, see this example:

1
2
3
$table->integer('user_balance')->unsigned()->default(0);

// `user_balance` is an integer, unsigned, with a default value of '0'.

Now we assume we have a column for user_balance and we want to change its type. Since Laravel 10, we can do this easily:

1
2
3
$table->bigInteger('user_balance')->change(); 

// This changes `user_balance` to a bigInteger instead of an integer

The above code successfully changes the type of the column, but also drops the attributes UNSIGNED and DEFAULT. Therefore, it is important to remember to add all attributes when changing the type of a column:

1
$table->bigInteger('user_balance')->unsigned()->default(0)->change();

In case you have multiple database connections and have doctrine/dbal already installed, it is recommended that you call the Schema::useNativeSchemaOperationsIfPossible() method within the boot method in AppProvidersAppServiceProvider to be able to use native schema operations and to use native operations before relying on the package (SQLite, for example, does not yet support this):

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
use IlluminateSupportFacadesSchema;
 
class AppServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
{
    public function boot()
    {
        Schema::useNativeSchemaOperationsIfPossible();
    }
}

Another notable feature of Laravel 10 is the ability to use the Schema::getColumnType method without depending on the doctrine/dbal package. Currently, we use Schema::getColumnType with doctrine/dbal to get the column type. Doctrine/dbal maps each native column type to its doctrine/dbal type equivalent, and it does not support many of the column types used by Laravel in different databases.

In Laravel 10, by contrast, the new method Schema::getColumnType returns the actual column type instead of the doctrine/dbal equivalent. This also allows you to write integration tests for the new native column change function. You can use this function to get the data type name or the entire type definition of the specified column:

Methods that were marked as deprecated in Laravel 9 will be removed in Laravel 10. The upgrade guide that you can find back in the documentation contains a list of the deprecated methods and the potential consequences.

Here are some deprecations we found:

• Removal of several deprecations PR #41136
• Removing deprecated date properties PR #41136
• Removing the handleDeprecation method PR #42590
• Remove the assertTimesSent method PR #42592
• Removing the ScheduleListCommand's $defaulName property Diff 419471e
• Removing the deprecated method Route::home PR #42614
• Removal of deprecated dispatchNow functionality PR 42591

You can install Laravel Pennant very easily with composer:

1
composer require laravel/pennant

To give a brief example of how feature flags work, you can deploy a functionality only to a select group of users in your production environment. This is great for A/B testing, for example.

1
2
3
4
5
6
use Laravel\Pennant\Feature;
use Illuminate\Support\Lottery;
 
Feature::define('new-coupon-order-flow', function () {
    return Lottery::odds(1, 10);
});

Verify that the user has access to the function:

1
2
3
if (Feature::active('new-coupon-order-flow')) {
    //
}

There is even a Blade directive:

1
2
3
@feature('new-coupon-order-flow')
    …
@endfeature

To learn more about Laravel Pennant, take a look at the official documentation.