Introduction

Laravel includes the ability to seed your database with test data using seed classes. All seed classes are stored in the `database/seeders` directory. By default, a `DatabaseSeeder` class is defined for you. From this class, you may use the `call` method to run other seed classes, allowing you to control the seeding order.

Writing Seeders

To generate a seeder, execute the `make:seeder` Artisan command. All seeders generated by the framework will be placed in the database/seeders directory:

php artisan make:seeder UserSeeder

A seeder class only contains one method by default: `run`. This method is called when the `db:seed` Artisan command is executed. Within the `run` method, you may insert data into your database however you wish. You may use the query builder to manually insert data or you may use Eloquent model factories.

As an example, let's modify the default DatabaseSeeder class and add a database insert statement to the run method:

<?php

namespace Database\Seeders;

use Illuminate\Database\Seeder;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\DB;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Hash;
use Illuminate\Support\Str;

class DatabaseSeeder extends Seeder
{
    /**
     * Run the database seeders.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function run()
    {
        DB::table('users')->insert([
            'name' => Str::random(10),
            'email' => Str::random(10).'@gmail.com',
            'password' => Hash::make('password'),
        ]);
    }
}

Using Model Factories

Of course, manually specifying the attributes for each model seed is cumbersome. Instead, you can use model factories to conveniently generate large amounts of database records. First, review the model factory documentation to learn how to define your factories.

For example, let's create 50 users that each have one related post:

use App\Models\User;

/**
 * Run the database seeders.
 *
 * @return void
 */
public function run()
{
    User::factory()
            ->times(50)
            ->hasPosts(1)
            ->create();
}