Default value in migrations without future auto-completion

[MrShnaider]

I come across such situations quite often. I have an existing table and I want to add a new column. After the migration, all existing rows should have some default value in this column. I can do this using the default method in the Blueprint instance:

$table->string('redeem_mode')->default('full');

The problem is that this will not only add a default value to existing rows, but it will also add that value in the future if the value is not provided at creation. I want the first behavior, but I don't want the second. As I see it, there is currently no mechanism for making such changes.

It can probably be implemented like this:

$table->string('redeem_mode')->default('full');
$table->string('redeem_mode')->default(null)->change();

Or write an sql query directly in the migration. But I probably would like to see such a method in the library itself.

Can you tell me if the change option will work? And if it is possible to add a method with this behavior to the "Blueprint" class?