How to populate databases in Laravel

Laravel includes the ability to seed your database with data using seed classes. All seed classes are stored in the database/seeders directory. By default, a DatabaseSeeder class is defined for you. From this class, you may use the call method to run other seed classes, allowing you to control the seeding order.

To generate a seeder, execute the make:seeder Artisan command. All seeders generated by the framework will be placed in the database/seeders directory:

php artisan make:seeder UserSeeder

A seeder class only contains one method by default: run. This method is called when the db:seed Artisan command is executed. Within the run method, you may insert data into your database however you wish. You may use the query builder to manually insert data or you may use Eloquent model factories.

namespace Database\Seeders;

use App\Models\Link;
use Illuminate\Database\Seeder;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\DB;

class LinkSeeder extends Seeder
{
    /**
     * Run the database seeds.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function run()
    {
        //only import seeds if DB is empty.
        if (!Link::count()) {
            // do your imports here
                        // you can use model factories or query builders too
        }
    }
}

Running seeders

You may execute the db:seed Artisan command to seed your database. By default, the db:seed command runs the Database\Seeders\DatabaseSeeder class, which may in turn invoke other seed classes. However, you may use the --class option to specify a specific seeder class to run individually:

php artisan db:seed

php artisan db:seed --class=UserSeeder

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