Question

This is probably in another question, but I cannot find it.

I am a relative noobie to Rails. I am trying to add a new column to a table that already has data in it. This column is not going to allow nulls. What is the easiest way to update all the existing records to have a value in this new column? I know it is probably in the up block of my migration, but I don’t know what the syntax would be.

def self.up
  change_table :reminders do |t|
    t.boolean :active
  end
  #model name is Reminder - how to update data with a value?
end

Answer 1

What you can do is add the column, update all records in the table with the desired value, then change it to not allow nulls.

def self.up
  add_column :reminders, :active, :boolean, :default => true
  Reminder.update_all( "active = ?", true )
  change_column :reminders, :active, :boolean, :default => true, :null => :false
end