Migrating from lwwcas/laravel-countries

The two packages share the same 7-table schema, the same Eloquent models, the same query scopes, and the same country data. Migrating is mostly a namespace swap plus forgetting about the two install commands.

At a glance

• No data loss — migration only adds the new native_name column.
• All query scopes (whereIso, whereCurrency, whereBorders, flag helpers, global scopes) are kept.
• WCountries facade alias is preserved.
• The two Artisan install commands are gone; replace them with php artisan db:seed.

1. Swap the composer package

composer remove lwwcas/laravel-countries
composer require aaix/laravel-countries

2. Rename the namespace

Project-wide find-and-replace — catches everything:

Lwwcas\LaravelCountries  →  Aaix\LaravelCountries

- use Lwwcas\LaravelCountries\Models\Country;
+ use Aaix\LaravelCountries\Models\Country;

If you were using the WCountries facade, the alias is preserved — no change needed there.

3. Run migrations

php artisan migrate

The existing 7 tables stay as they are. A single additive migration adds native_name to lc_countries. Your existing country IDs are untouched, so any foreign keys in your own tables that reference lc_countries.id keep pointing at the right row.

4. Update your seeder call

  public function run(): void
  {
-     $this->call(\Lwwcas\LaravelCountries\Database\Seeders\LwwcasDatabaseSeeder::class);
+     $this->call(\Aaix\LaravelCountries\Database\Seeders\DatabaseSeeder::class);
  }

Then:

php artisan db:seed

The new master seeder runs regions + 245 countries + all 9 languages + native names in one pass. It's now idempotent — every write is an updateOrCreate keyed on ISO code / locale, so it's safe to re-run on every deploy.

See Seeding for the full behavior.

5. Drop the old Artisan commands

php artisan w-countries:install and php artisan w-countries:languages no longer exist. Anything you had wired into your Procfile, Forge/Envoyer deploy scripts, or CI hooks that invoked them can be replaced with php artisan db:seed.

Languages

All 9 supported languages are seeded by default — there is no opt-in step. If you only need a subset, delete the unused locales after seeding (see Seeding → Languages).

Optional: adopt the new APIs

These are additive; your existing code keeps working regardless.

use Aaix\LaravelCountries\Models\Country;

// Static lookup by alpha-2, case-insensitive
$de = Country::getByCode('DE');

// Localized name with fallback-locale fallback
$de->nameInLang('ja');        // falls back to English if 'ja' translation is missing

// The country in its own primary language
$de->native_name;             // "Deutschland"

// Dropdown-ready, sorted, N+1-free
Country::listInLang('de');
// ['AT' => 'Österreich', 'DE' => 'Deutschland', 'FR' => 'Frankreich', ...]

See Usage & API for the full reference.