How to use multiple databases in Laravel

Question

I want to combine multiple databases in my system. Most of the time the database is MySQL; but it may differ in future i.e. Admin can generate such a reports which is use source of heterogeneous database system.

Does Laravel provide any Facade to deal with such situations? Or any other framework have more suitable capabilities for problem is?

Answer 1

Hello @kartik,

Laravel has inbuilt support for multiple database systems, you need to provide connection details in config/database.php file

return [
    'default' => env('DB_CONNECTION', 'mysql'),

    'connections' => [
        'mysql' => [
            'driver' => 'mysql',
            'host' => env('DB_HOST', '127.0.0.1'),
            'port' => env('DB_PORT', '3306'),
            'database' => env('DB_DATABASE', 'forge'),
            'username' => env('DB_USERNAME', 'forge'),
            'password' => env('DB_PASSWORD', ''),
            'charset' => 'utf8',
            'collation' => 'utf8_unicode_ci',
            'prefix' => '',
            'strict' => false,
            'engine' => null,
        ],
'mysqlOne' => [
            'driver' => 'mysql',
            'host' => env('DB_HOST_ONE', '127.0.0.1'),
            'port' => env('DB_PORT', '3306'),
            'database' => env('DB_DATABASE_ONE', 'forge'),
            'username' => env('DB_USERNAME_ONE', 'forge'),
            'password' => env('DB_PASSWORD_ONE', ''),
            'charset' => 'utf8',
            'collation' => 'utf8_unicode_ci',
            'prefix' => '',
            'strict' => false,
            'engine' => null,
        ],
];

Once you have this you can create two base model class for each connection and define the connection name in those models

//BaseModel.php
protected $connection = 'mysql';

//BaseModelOne.php
protected $connection = 'mysqlOne';

You can extend these models to create more models for tables in each DB.

Hope this is helpfull!!

Thank you!!