Is it possible to change the order of the columns in your MySQL (or other database) table using a migration? Lets see.

If you check the ActiveRecord::Migration documentation you’ll see there is a method called ‘change_column’ which accepts various options.

<tt>change_column(table_name, column_name, type, options)</tt>:
Changes the column to a different type using the same parameters as add_column

As of Rails 2.3.6 this is now available by using the :after option. You’ll have to include the field type, even though you are not modifying the type.

Example:

change_column :orders, :tax_rate, :float, :after => :tax_state