Migrations

Moor provides a migration API that can be used to gradually apply schema changes after bumping the schemaVersion getter inside the Database class. To use it, override the migration getter. Here’s an example: Let’s say you wanted to add a due date to your todo entries:

class Todos extends Table {
  IntColumn get id => integer().autoIncrement()();
  TextColumn get title => text().withLength(min: 6, max: 10)();
  TextColumn get content => text().named('body')();
  IntColumn get category => integer().nullable()();
  DateTimeColumn get dueDate => dateTime().nullable()(); // new, added column
}

We can now change the database class like this:

  @override
  int get schemaVersion => 2; // bump because the tables have changed

  @override
  MigrationStrategy get migration => MigrationStrategy(
    onCreate: (Migrator m) {
      return m.createAllTables();
    },
    onUpgrade: (Migrator m, int from, int to) async {
      if (from == 1) {
        // we added the dueDate property in the change from version 1
        await m.addColumn(todos, todos.dueDate);
      }
    }
  );

  // rest of class can stay the same

You can also add individual tables or drop them - see the reference of Migrator for all the available options. You can’t use the high-level query API in migrations - calling select or similar methods will throw.

sqlite can feel a bit limiting when it comes to migrations - there only are methods to create tables and columns. Existing columns can’t be altered or removed. A workaround is described here, it can be used together with issueCustomQuery to run the statements.

Post-migration callbacks

The beforeOpen parameter in MigrationStrategy can be used to populate data after the database has been created. It runs after migrations, but before any other query. Note that it will be called whenever the database is opened, regardless of whether a migration actually ran or not. You can use details.hadUpgrade or details.wasCreated to check whether migrations were necessary:

beforeOpen: (details) async {
    if (details.wasCreated) {
      final workId = await into(categories).insert(Category(description: 'Work'));
    
      await into(todos).insert(TodoEntry(
            content: 'A first todo entry',
            category: null,
            targetDate: DateTime.now(),
      ));
    
      await into(todos).insert(
            TodoEntry(
              content: 'Rework persistence code',
              category: workId,
              targetDate: DateTime.now().add(const Duration(days: 4)),
      ));
    }
},

You could also activate pragma statements that you need:

beforeOpen: (details) async {
  if (details.wasCreated) {
    // ...
  }
  await customStatement('PRAGMA foreign_keys = ON');
}

During development

During development, you might be changing your schema very often and don’t want to write migrations for that yet. You can just delete your apps’ data and reinstall the app - the database will be deleted and all tables will be created again. Please note that uninstalling is not enough sometimes - Android might have backed up the database file and will re-create it when installing the app again.

You can also delete and re-create all tables every time your app is opened, see this comment on how that can be achieved.