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Bulk Update Multiple Records with Separate Data — Laravel
As a rule of thumb, we should never run database queries inside a for-loop!
“Database transaction” is an expensive operation.
For example, let’s say we designed an inventory software and it’s being used in production for a year, and reached 1,000,000 transactions.
Suddenly, we learnt that we didn’t add the VAT to our transactions. For the transactions in the future, it’s pretty easy to deal with, maybe with a mutator.
class Transaction extends Model {
public $vat = 0.20;
public function setPriceAttribute($value) {
$this->attributes['price'] += $value * $this->vat;
}
}
Future records are pretty easy to deal with. However how are we going to edit the 1 million records from the past.
For editing data from the past, I prefer to create a Seeder.
php artisan make:seeder AddVatToTransactions
class AddVatToTransactions extends Seeder {
public function run()
{
$vat = 0.20;
$transactions = Transaction::get();
foreach ($transactions as $transaction) {
$transaction->price += $transaction->price * $vat
$transaction->save();
}
}
}
However, running it in a loop of 1 million and making a “database transaction” in each iteration of the loop — not a good idea! (Spoiler Alert: It’ll freeze your system 😀)
Again, in our AddVatToTransactions
Seeder:
The idea in mysql query is “CASE Statements”
UPDATE db.transactions
SET PRICE = CASE
WHEN id = 3 THEN 500
WHEN id = 4 THEN 300
END
WHERE ID IN (3, 4)
$vat = 0.20;
$transactions = Transaction::get();
$cases = [];
$ids = [];
$params = [];
foreach ($transactions as $transaction) {
$cases[] = "WHEN {$transaction->id} then ?";
$params[] = $transaction->profit * $vat;
$ids[] = $transaction->id;
}
$ids = implode(',', $ids);
$cases = implode(' ', $cases);
if (!empty($ids)) {
\DB::update("UPDATE transactions SET `price` = CASE `id` {$cases} END WHERE `id` in ({$ids})", $params);
}
This will make one database transaction to write it all your updates.⚡️
🗣 I can hear some of you saying: “It’s still FREEZING”
#1: “Select” only the data you need from the database to consume less RAM.
In our example, we only use “id” and “price” columns. So let’s only select them.
$transactions = Transaction::select('id', 'price')->get();
#2: “Chunk” your collection to separate your transaction to multiple database transactions.
In Laravel, you can chunk collections like
Transaction::get()->chunk(5000);
Here, first we divide our $transactions
collection into 5000 chunks and we do a “database transaction” per 5k records at once.
$vat = 0.20;
$transactions = Transaction::get();
foreach ($transactions->chunk(5000) as $chunk) {
$cases = [];
$ids = [];
$params = [];
foreach ($chunk as $transaction) {
$cases[] = "WHEN {$transaction->id} then ?";
$params[] = $transaction->profit * $vat;
$ids[] = $transaction->id;
}
$ids = implode(',', $ids);
$cases = implode(' ', $cases);
if (!empty($ids)) {
\DB::update("UPDATE transactions SET `price` = CASE `id` {$cases} END WHERE `id` in ({$ids})", $params);
}
}
Hope you like this trick!
Please let me know what you think in the comments 💬
Happy coding! 😊
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