Laravel 6.x Upgrade Guide

High Impact Changes

Medium Impact Changes

Upgrading To 6.0 From 5.8

Estimated Upgrade Time: One Hour

Note: We attempt to document every possible breaking change. Since some of these breaking changes are in obscure parts of the framework only a portion of these changes may actually affect your application.

PHP 7.2 Required

Likelihood Of Impact: Medium

PHP 7.1 will no longer be actively maintained as of December 2019. Therefore, Laravel 6.0 requires PHP 7.2 or greater.

Updating Dependencies

Update your laravel/framework dependency to ^6.0 in your composer.json file.

Next, examine any 3rd party packages consumed by your application and verify you are using the proper version for Laravel 6 support.

Authorization

Authorized Resources & viewAny

Likelihood Of Impact: High

Authorization policies attached to controllers using the authorizeResource method should now define a viewAny method, which will be called when a user accesses the controller's index method. Otherwise, calls to the index method of the controller will be rejected as unauthorized.

Authorization Responses

Likelihood Of Impact: Low

The constructor signature of the Illuminate\Auth\Access\Response class has changed. You should update your code accordingly. If you are not constructing authorization responses manually and are only using the allow and deny instance methods within your policies, no change is required:

/**
 * Create a new response.
 *
 * @param  bool  $allowed
 * @param  string  $message
 * @param  mixed  $code
 * @return void
 */
public function __construct($allowed, $message = '', $code = null)

Returning "Deny" Responses

Likelihood Of Impact: Low

In previous releases of Laravel, you did not need to return the value of the deny method from your policy methods since an exception was thrown immediately. However, in accordance with the Laravel documentation, you must now return the value of the deny method from your policies:

public function update(User $user, Post $post)
{
    if (! $user->role->isEditor()) {
        return $this->deny("You must be an editor to edit this post.")
    }

    return $user->id === $post->user_id;
}

The Illuminate\Contracts\Auth\Access\Gate Contract

Likelihood Of Impact: Low

The Illuminate\Contracts\Auth\Access\Gate contract has received a new inspect method. If you are implementing this interface manually, you should add this method to your implementation.

Carbon

Carbon 1.x No Longer Supported

Likelihood Of Impact: Medium

Carbon 1.x is no longer supported since it is nearing its maintenance end of life. Please upgrade your application to Carbon 2.0.

Configuration

The AWS_REGION Environment Variable

Likelihood Of Impact: Optional

If you plan to utilize Laravel Vapor, you should update all occurrences of AWS_REGION within your config directory to AWS_DEFAULT_REGION. In addition, you should update this environment variable's name in your .env file.

Redis Default Client

Likelihood Of Impact: Medium

The default Redis client has changed from predis to phpredis. In order to keep using predis, ensure the redis.client configuration option is set to predis in your config/database.php configuration file.

DynamoDB Cache Store

Likelihood Of Impact: Optional

If you plan to utilize Laravel Vapor, you should update your config/cache.php file to include the dynamodb store.

<?php
return [
    ...
    'stores' => [
        ...
        'dynamodb' => [
            'driver' => 'dynamodb',
            'key' => env('AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID'),
            'secret' => env('AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY'),
            'region' => env('AWS_DEFAULT_REGION', 'us-east-1'),
            'table' => env('DYNAMODB_CACHE_TABLE', 'cache'),
            'endpoint' => env('DYNAMODB_ENDPOINT'),
        ],
    ],
    ...
];

SQS Environment Variables

Likelihood Of Impact: Optional

If you plan to utilize Laravel Vapor, you should update your config/queue.php file to include the updated sqs connection environment variables.

<?php
return [
    ...
    'connections' => [
        ...
        'sqs' => [
            'driver' => 'sqs',
            'key' => env('AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID'),
            'secret' => env('AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY'),
            'prefix' => env('SQS_PREFIX', 'https://sqs.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/your-account-id'),
            'queue' => env('SQS_QUEUE', 'your-queue-name'),
            'region' => env('AWS_DEFAULT_REGION', 'us-east-1'),
        ],
    ],
    ...
];

Database

The Capsule table Method

Likelihood Of Impact: Medium

Note: This change only applies to non-Laravel applications that are using illuminate/database as a dependency.

The signature of the Illuminate\Database\Capsule\Manager class' table method has updated to accept a table alias as its second argument. If you are using illuminate/database outside of a Laravel application, you should update any calls to this method accordingly:

/**
 * Get a fluent query builder instance.
 *
 * @param  \Closure|\Illuminate\Database\Query\Builder|string  $table
 * @param  string|null  $as
 * @param  string|null  $connection
 * @return \Illuminate\Database\Query\Builder
 */
public static function table($table, $as = null, $connection = null)

The cursor Method

Likelihood Of Impact: Low

The cursor method now returns an instance of Illuminate\Support\LazyCollection instead of a Generator The LazyCollection may be iterated just like a generator:

$users = App\User::cursor();

foreach ($users as $user) {
    //
}

Eloquent

The BelongsTo::update Method

Likelihood Of Impact: Medium

For consistency, the update method of the BelongsTo relationship now functions as an ad-hoc update query, meaning it does not provide mass assignment protection or fire Eloquent events. This makes the relationship consistent with the update methods on all other types of relationships.

If you would like to update a model attached via a BelongsTo relationship and receive mass assignment update protection and events, you should call the update method on the model itself:

// Ad-hoc query... no mass assignment protection or events...
$post->user()->update(['foo' => 'bar']);

// Model update... provides mass assignment protection and events...
$post->user->update(['foo' => 'bar']);

Arrayable & toArray

Likelihood Of Impact: Medium

The Eloquent model's toArray method will now cast any attributes that implement Illuminate\Contracts\Support\Arrayable to an array.

Declaration Of Primary Key Type

Likelihood Of Impact: Medium

Laravel 6.0 has received performance optimizations for integer key types. If you are using a string as your model's primary key, you should declare the key type using the $keyType property on your model:

/**
 * The "type" of the primary key ID.
 *
 * @var string
 */
protected $keyType = 'string';

Email Verification

Resend Verification Route HTTP Method

Likelihood Of Impact: Medium

To prevent possible CSRF attacks, the email/resend route registered by the router when using Laravel's built-in email verification has been updated from a GET route to a POST route. Therefore, you will need to update your frontend to send the proper request type to this route. For example, if you are using the built-in email verification template scaffolding:

{{ __('Before proceeding, please check your email for a verification link.') }}
{{ __('If you did not receive the email') }},

<form class="d-inline" method="POST" action="{{ route('verification.resend') }}">
    @csrf

    <button type="submit" class="btn btn-link p-0 m-0 align-baseline">
        {{ __('click here to request another') }}
    </button>.
</form>

The MustVerifyEmail Contract

Likelihood Of Impact: Low

A new getEmailForVerification method has been added to the Illuminate\Contracts\Auth\MustVerifyEmail contract. If you are manually implementing this contract, you should implement this method. This method should return the object's associated email address. If your App\User model is using the Illuminate\Auth\MustVerifyEmail trait, no changes are required, as this trait implements this method for you.

Email Verification Route Change

Likelihood Of Impact: Medium

The route path for verifying emails has changed from /email/verify/{id} to /email/verify/{id}/{hash}. Any email verification emails that were sent prior to upgrading to Laravel 6.x will not longer be valid and will display a 404 page. If you wish, you may define a route matching the old verification URL path and display an informative message for your users that asks them to re-verify their email address.

Helpers

String & Array Helpers Package

Likelihood Of Impact: High

All str_ and array_ helpers have been moved to the new laravel/helpers Composer package and removed from the framework. If desired, you may update all calls to these helpers to use the Illuminate\Support\Str and Illuminate\Support\Arr classes. Alternatively, you can add the new laravel/helpers package to your application to continue using these helpers:

composer require laravel/helpers

Localization

The Lang::trans & Lang::transChoice Methods

Likelihood Of Impact: Medium

The Lang::trans and Lang::transChoice methods of the translator have been renamed to Lang::get and Lang::choice.

In addition, if you are manually implementing the Illuminate\Contracts\Translation\Translator contract, you should update your implementation's trans and transChoice methods to get and choice.

The Lang::getFromJson Method

Likelihood Of Impact: Medium

The Lang::get and Lang::getFromJson methods have been consolidated. Calls to the Lang::getFromJson method should be updated to call Lang::get.

Note: You should run the php artisan view:clear Artisan command to avoid Blade errors related to the removal of Lang::transChoice, Lang::trans, and Lang::getFromJson.

Mail

Mandrill & SparkPost Drivers Removed

Likelihood Of Impact: Low

The mandrill and sparkpost mail drivers have been removed. If you would like to continue using either of these drivers, we encourage you to adopt a community maintained package of your choice that provides the driver.

Notifications

Nexmo Routing Removed

Likelihood Of Impact: Low

A lingering part of the Nexmo notification channel was removed from the core of the framework. If you're relying on routing Nexmo notifications you should manually implement the routeNotificationForNexmo method on your notifiable entity as described in the documentation.

Password Reset

Password Validation

Likelihood Of Impact: Low

The PasswordBroker no longer restricts or validates passwords. Password validation was already being handled by the ResetPasswordController class, making the broker's validations redundant and impossible to customize. If you are manually using the PasswordBroker (or Password facade) outside of the built-in ResetPasswordController, you should validate all passwords before passing them to the broker.

Queues

Queue Retry Limit

Likelihood Of Impact: Medium

In previous releases of Laravel, the php artisan queue:work command would retry jobs indefinitely. Beginning with Laravel 6.0, this command will now try a job one time by default. If you would like to force jobs to be tried indefinitely, you may pass 0 to the --tries option:

php artisan queue:work --tries=0

In addition, please ensure your application's database contains a failed_jobs table. You can generate a migration for this table using the queue:failed-table Artisan command:

php artisan queue:failed-table

Requests

The Input Facade

Likelihood Of Impact: Medium

The Input facade, which was primarily a duplicate of the Request facade, has been removed. If you are using the Input::get method, you should now call the Request::input method. All other calls to the Input facade may simply be updated to use the Request facade.

Scheduling

The between Method

Likelihood Of Impact: Low

In previous releases of Laravel, the scheduler's between method exhibited confusing behavior across date boundaries. For example:

$schedule->command('list')->between('23:00', '4:00');

For most users, the expected behavior of this method would be to run the list command every minute for all minutes between 23:00 and 4:00. However, in previous releases of Laravel, the scheduler ran the list command every minute between 4:00 and 23:00, essentially swapping the time thresholds. In Laravel 6.0, this behavior has been corrected.

Storage

Rackspace Storage Driver Removed

Likelihood Of Impact: Low

The rackspace storage driver has been removed. If you would like to continue using Rackspace as a storage provider, we encourage you to adopt a community maintained package of your choice that provides this driver.

URL Generation

Route URL Generation & Extra Parameters

In previous releases of Laravel, passing associative array parameters to the route helper or URL::route method would occasionally use these parameters as URI values when generating URLs for routes, even if the parameter value had no matching key within the route path. Beginning in Laravel 6.0, these values will be attached to the query string instead. For example, consider the following route:

Route::get('/profile/{location}', function ($location = null) {
    //
})->name('profile');

// Laravel 5.8: http://example.com/profile/active
echo route('profile', ['status' => 'active']);

// Laravel 6.0: http://example.com/profile?status=active
echo route('profile', ['status' => 'active']);

The action helper and URL::action method are also affected by this change:

Route::get('/profile/{id}', 'ProfileController@show');

// Laravel 5.8: http://example.com/profile/1
echo action('ProfileController@show', ['profile' => 1]);

// Laravel 6.0: http://example.com/profile?profile=1
echo action('ProfileController@show', ['profile' => 1]);

Validation

FormRequest validationData Method

Likelihood Of Impact: Low

The form request's validationData method was changed from protected to public. If you are overriding this method in your implementation, you should update the visibility to public.

Miscellaneous

We also encourage you to view the changes in the laravel/laravel GitHub repository. While many of these changes are not required, you may wish to keep these files in sync with your application. Some of these changes will be covered in this upgrade guide, but others, such as changes to configuration files or comments, will not be. You can easily view the changes with the GitHub comparison tool and choose which updates are important to you.