Proposal for Yii2 database migration script to automatically regenerate model classes

yii2-migration-regenerate-base-classes.md

Yii has some great features for simplifying and automating portions of development. Two key areas are...

• Gii generating model classes based on table schemas
• Using the yiic migrate command to manage schema changes

I am proposing two enhancements to these areas. For Gii model generation, I suggest that it create separate Base and extending classes (https://gist.github.com/fillup/5cdba5990c6576bbbfb0). In this Gist I propose that the migration support is enhanced to add a parameter for automatically regenerating the base classes for affected (or all) tables.

My ideal workflow would be:

1. ./yiic migrate create create_table_user // migration for creating a table named 'user'
2. Edit the migration file to define the schema for the 'user' table
3. Execute the migration: ./yiic migrate --gii-create-classes
4. With the flag --gii-create-classes provided, migrate would work with Gii to generate two class files: UserBase and User. UserBase would match the file that Gii currently generates and User would be an empty class that extends UserBase.
5. ./yiic migrate create alter_user_table // create migration to modify the table named 'user'
6. Edit the migration file to alter the table
7. Execute the migration: ./yiic migrate --gii-create-classes
8. With the flag --gii-create-classes provided, gii sees that the extending class already exists so it only recreates the Base class

With this flow I'm able to focus on my database schemas/migrations and Yii/Gii takes care of model class file (re)generation.