Setting Up Enum in Rails 8 with Migrations #

Before defining an enum, you need a database column to store the values. Since enums are internally stored as integers, your migration should specify the column as integer.

Creating a Migration for Enums #

For example, if we have a users table and want to add a status column with enums:

rails generate migration AddStatusToUsers status:integer

This generates a migration file like:

class AddStatusToUsers < ActiveRecord::Migration[8.0]
  def change
    add_column :users, :status, :integer, default: 0, null: false
  end
end

• default: 0 ensures new records have a valid default value.
• null: false enforces data integrity, preventing NULL values in the column.

After defining the migration, run it:

rails db:migrate

Now the users table has a status column ready for enum usage.