Why doesn't laravel use / support native database ENUM() for postgres ? type ?

[zackAJ]

When using ->enum() to create a database enum column with postgres driver, laravel creates a varchar columns with constraints.
Native Enum types can be helpful for type safety when querying, example:

Concider this enum:

$table->enum('status', ['SENT', 'FAILED']);

Concider this query:

$query->where('status','wrong enum value')->get();

• In current laravel implementation: this is a valid query that returns 0 rows.
• With native postgres enum type, this throws something like :

SQLSTATE[22P02]: Invalid text representation: 7 ERROR:  invalid input value for enum random_table_name_status: "wrong enum value"

My questions are:

• Why doesn't laravel use / support native database ENUM() type ?
• Are contribution welcomed to add support for native enums in a none breaking way ?

[hafezdivandari]

As you mentioned PostgreSQL, you may use the following:

DB::statement("CREATE TYPE orders_status_enum_type AS ENUM ('sent', 'failed')");

Schema::create('orders', function (Blueprint $table) {
    // ...
    $table->rawColumn('status', 'orders_status_enum_type');
    // ...
});

[browner12]

I just added an enum field for MySQL and it used the native type just fine.

Are you trying it on an engine that doesn't support Enum?

[zackAJ]

Thanks for pointing that out, I'm using Postgres, I'll update the description to be more specific.