Soft Dropping Tables in Migrations

[digitalcraftlabs]

Background

Currently, when rolling back a migration in Laravel, tables are dropped immediately using Schema::dropIfExists('table_name'). However, in some cases, it would be beneficial to have a "soft drop" mechanism that renames the table instead of deleting it outright. This would allow for easier recovery in case of mistakes or unexpected issues during rollbacks.

Proposal

Introduce a new method in Laravel's Schema facade, such as:

Schema::softDrop('users');

Instead of dropping the table immediately, this method would rename it, appending a timestamp:

RENAME TABLE users TO old_users_1709401234;

This renamed table could then be automatically removed after a configurable period (e.g., 30 days) using a scheduled command or manually deleted if needed.

Benefits

1. Prevents Accidental Data Loss – If a migration rollback is executed by mistake, data is not lost immediately.
2. Easier Debugging & Recovery – Developers can inspect renamed tables before permanent deletion.
3. Configurable Cleanup – A command could be provided to clean up old tables after a certain period.

Potential Implementation

• Introduce Schema::softDrop($tableName), which renames the table instead of deleting it.
• Provide an Artisan command (e.g., php artisan schema:cleanup) to permanently delete old tables after a defined retention period.
• Optionally, integrate with Laravel’s scheduler for automated cleanup.

Alternative Approach

Instead of modifying Schema, Laravel could introduce a new migration method, such as:

$table->softDeleteTable();

This would behave similarly to dropIfExists() but would rename the table first.

Would love to hear feedback on this idea! 🚀

[shaedrich]

It would also be awesome if there was a dedicated exception for this (this might require a migration_soft_deleted_tables table for the mapping or the like (said table might even have a column for the case that you want a custom error message))