Artisan command to connect to the database in CLI in Laravel 8.x
Laravel keeps getting better on each of its major releases. But sometimes, it’s the minor and patch releases that take the cake by introducing some lesser-noticed features.
For instance, recently, with the release of Laravel v8.16.0, it’s now possible to connect to the project’s databases right from the CLI using an Artisan command.
The artisan db command
A PR in v8.16.0 has introduced an artisan command php artisan db which is when run can connect to the default database of the project right in the CLI. As the PR author describes, it’s similar to what Rails has in the rails db command.
This command figures out which database you are using and starts a database CLI session based on your database configuration parameters defined in config/database.php.
So, for instance, if my project is using a MySQL database as its default database breeze and if I run the artisan db command, it will connect to the database like so.
Pretty nifty, right!
Specify connection explicitly
Apart from using the default php artisan db which connects to the default database, you can also explicitly specify the connection to connect to a non-default database connection like so.
$ php artisan db sqlite
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