Column Types in Yii Migrations

I can never remember the abstract column types Yii supports, and never seem to get the right search string for google, but I’ll remember my own blog post.

Yii Database Abstract Column Types

Physical types are given in brackets using MySQL syntax.

  • pk: auto-incremental primary key type (“int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY”).
  • string: string type (“varchar(255)”).
  • text: a long string type (“text”).
  • integer: integer type (“int(11)”).
  • boolean: boolean type (“tinyint(1)”).
  • float: float number type (“float”).
  • decimal: decimal number type (“decimal”).
  • datetime: datetime type (“datetime”).
  • timestamp: timestamp type (“timestamp”).
  • time: time type (“time”).
  • date: date type (“date”).
  • binary: binary data type (“blob”).

If the abstract type contains two or more parts separated by spaces (e.g. “string NOT NULL”), then only the first part will be converted, and the rest of the parts will be appended to the conversion result. For example, ‘string NOT NULL’ is converted to ‘varchar(255) NOT NULL’.

I have shamelessly plagiarized this list from the Yii manual. Also see the Yii manual’s excellent article on migrations, and queirozf.com has a nice list of tips.