`php artisan db:table` command ignores configured database and uses first alphabetical database

[mauricekindermann]

Laravel Version

12.21.0

PHP Version

8.4.8

Database Driver & Version

MariaDB 10.5.26 for macOS (arm64) via Homebrew

Description

The php artisan db:table command does not use the configured default database in config/database.php or the DB_DATABASE environment variable. Instead, it connects to the first database alphabetically available on the database server.

This causes the command to inspect tables from the wrong database when multiple databases exist on the same server.

Expected Behavior:
The command should use the database specified in DB_DATABASE environment variable or the default connection configured in config/database.php.

Actual Behavior:
The command connects to the first database alphabetically, ignoring the Laravel database configuration.

Workaround:
You can make it work but you have to specify your full database name each time: php artisan db:table my-laravel-app.users

Steps To Reproduce

1. Set up a database server (MySQL/MariaDB) with multiple databases
2. Ensure one database name comes alphabetically before your Laravel app database (e.g., chirper and
   my-laravel-app)
3. Configure your Laravel app to use the latter database via DB_DATABASE=my-laravel-app in .env
4. Run php artisan db:table users
5. Observe that it shows the table from the alphabetically first database (chirper) instead of the configured
   database (my-laravel-app)

[crynobone]

#54274

The merged PR does indicate this should be the behaviour now

[mauricekindermann]

Interesting, I wonder why? Maybe it's more complex that I imagine to default target your current ENV database.

Either way it doesn't seem very intuitive to me - you'd expect model:show and db:table to use the same source / ENV of your current project, and not have one show you your current project and another potentially show you an entirely different project.

Especially since that's how I imagine most people using Herd would have it configured (1 localhost mysql database for all your projects). Not to mention AI use cases - I didn't realize terminal agents using artisan commands might be seeing the wrong data.