Add soft delete to existing databse table in Laravel [ Updated ]

Let's add soft delete to existing database table

To do this we need to open Model file in code editor, where you want to add soft delete.

add this line in top of the model file.

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\SoftDeletes;

Now we make or model to use Soft delete.

class Product extends Model {
    use SoftDeletes;

    protected $dates = ['deleted_at'];
}

We need to create a migration file so we can add "delete_at" column in database table.

so to do that, Navigate to the project folder using terminal and run command something like this

php artisan make:migration add_soft_delete_to_products_table

Now edit migration file

Newly created migration file should be in directory "yourProject/database/migrations". Open this file using code editor.

now add these 2 lines if already not there

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schema;
use Illuminate\Database\Schema\Blueprint;
use Illuminate\Database\Migrations\Migration;

Then

in functions add code like this

// up function should look like this

    public function up()
	{
		Schema::table('products', function(Blueprint $table)
		{
			$table->softDeletes();
		});
	}

And down function

public function down()
	{
		Schema::table('products', function(Blueprint $table)
		{
            $table->dropSoftDeletes();
		});
	}

Run migration

by running

php artisan migrate

It will add the deleted_at field in database table. and then you can delete using delete() function in query. If will be soft delete.

//Now this will do a soft delete

Product::where('id',$id)->delete();