Connect multiple databases in laravel

Working with databases and running queries is simple in laravel. Also you can easily work with connect multiple databases in laravel. In laravel database configuration for your laravel application is located at config/database.php. This file contain database connections. You may define all of your database connections in this file. You may specify which connection should be used by default in return array like.

// Define default database for your application.
'default' => 'mysql',

This file included examples for all of the supported database systems. Now let’s start how to connect multiple databases in laravel 5. For this first go to your config/database.php, open it in your favorite editor and add your multiple databases under connections array.

'connections' => [
 // our primary default database.
	'mysql' => [
		'driver'    => 'mysql',
		'host'      => env('DB_HOST', 'localhost'),
		'database'  => env('DB_DATABASE', 'laravelu'),
		'username'  => env('DB_USERNAME', 'root'),
		'password'  => env('DB_PASSWORD', ''),
		'charset'   => 'utf8',
		'collation' => 'utf8_unicode_ci',
		'prefix'    => '',
		'strict'    => false,
	],
// our second database.
	'mysql2' => [
		'driver'    => 'mysql',
		'host'      => env('DB_HOST', 'localhost'),
		'database'  => env('DB_DATABASE', 'laravel'),
		'username'  => env('DB_USERNAME', 'root'),
		'password'  => env('DB_PASSWORD', ''),
		'charset'   => 'utf8',
		'collation' => 'utf8_unicode_ci',
		'prefix'    => '',
		'strict'    => false,
	],

],

Now we have added to databases in this file with named “laravelu” and “laravel”. So initially we have defined our databases. Now we need to play with our multiple databases.

Accessing connection and running query with Query Builder :- Now let’s see how to run query with both databases. When we are using multiple connections, we can access each connection via the connection() method on the DB facade. The name passed to the connection method should correspond to one of the connections listed in your config/database.php configuration file. To run query you need to make first DB object then you can access data with this object easily like

// Running query with default connection.
$userArray = DB::table('users')->get();
print_r($userArray);

// Makeing an object of second DB.             
$users2 = DB::connection('mysql2');
// Getting data with second DB object.
$u = $users2->table('sc_items')->get();
print_r($u);

Now you can access default DB as normal query run. Then for second you can use $users object. For more follow Accessing Connections.

Note :- If you have an error with connections, or second db didn’t connect and showing error with “firstdb.table” not found.

Go to “root/.env” file and remove initial database configuration (remove code looks like below) For more about Environment Configuration. Save .env file and run you queries.

DB_HOST=localhost
DB_DATABASE=laravelu
DB_USERNAME=root
DB_PASSWORD=''

There are more methods to Connect multiple databases in laravel and access connections. The default and easy i have shared to connect multiple databases in laravel and access connections and run your queries.