Searchable trait for Laravel's Eloquent models

This package adds search/filtering functionality to Eloquent models in Laravel 4/5/6.

You could also find those packages useful:

• Withable - Allows eager loading of relations using request parameters
• Sortable - Allows sorting your models using request parameters
• Pimpable - A meta package that combines Sortable, Searchable and Withable behaviours

Composer install

Add the following line to composer.json file in your project:

"jedrzej/searchable": "0.0.17"

or run the following in the commandline in your project's root folder:

composer require "jedrzej/searchable" "0.0.17"

Setting up searchable models

In order to make an Eloquent model searchable, add the trait to the model and define a list of fields that the model can be filtered by. You can either define a $searchable property or implement a getSearchableAttributes method if you want to execute some logic to define list of searchable fields.

use Jedrzej\Searchable\SearchableTrait;

class Post extends Eloquent
{
	use SearchableTrait;
	
	// either a property holding a list of searchable fields...
	public $searchable = ['title', 'forum_id', 'user_id', 'created_at'];
	
	// ...or a method that returns a list of searchable fields
	public function getSearchableAttributes()
	{
	    return ['title', 'forum_id', 'user_id', 'created_at'];
	}
}

In order to make all fields searchable put an asterisk * in the list of searchable fields:

public $searchable = ['*'];

It is also possible to blacklist model's attributes to prevent it from being filtered on.

You can either define a $notSearchable property or implement a getNotSearchableAttributes method if you want to execute some logic to define list of searchable fields.

use Jedrzej\Searchable\SearchableTrait;

class Post extends Eloquent
{
	use SearchableTrait;
	
	// either a property holding a list of not searchable fields...
	public $notSearchable = ['created_at'];
	
	// ...or a method that returns a list of not searchable fields
	public function getNotSearchableAttributes()
	{
	    return ['created_at'];
	}
}

If you define both lists - searchable and not searchable columns - the resulting set of searchable fields will contain all whitelisted attributes except all blacklisted attributes.

Searching models

SearchableTrait adds a filtered() scope to the model - you can pass it a query being an array of filter conditions:

// return all posts with forum_id equal to $forum_id
Post::filtered(['forum_id' => $forum_id])->get();

// return all posts with with <operator> applied to forum_id
Post::filtered(['forum_id' => <operator>])->get();

or it will use Request::all() as default:

// if you append ?forum_id=<operator> to the URL, you'll get all Posts with <operator> applied to forum_id
Post::filtered()->get();

Choosing query mode

The default query mode is to apply conjunction (AND) of all queries to searchable model. It can be changed to disjunction (OR) by setting value of mode query paramter to or. If the mode query parameter is already in use, name returned by getQueryMode method will be used.

Building a query

The SearchableTrait supports the following operators:

Comparison operators

Comparison operators allow filtering based on result of comparison of model's attribute and query value. They work for strings, numbers and dates. They have the following format:

(<operator>)<value>

The following comparison operators are available:

• gt for greater than comparison
• ge for greater than or equal comparison
• lt for less than comparison, e.g
• le for les than or equal comparison

In order to filter posts from 2015 and newer, the following query should be used:

?created_at=(ge)2015-01-01

Equals/In operators

Searchable trait allows filtering by exact value of an attribute or by a set of values, depending on the type of value passed as query parameter. If the value contains commas, the parameter is split on commas and used as array input for IN filtering, otherwise exact match is applied.

In order to filter posts from user with id 42, the following query should be used:

?user_id=42

In order to filter posts from forums with id 7 or 8, the following query should be used:

?forum_id=7,8

Like operators

Like operators allow filtering using LIKE query. This operator is triggered if exact match operator is used, but value contains % sign as first or last character.

In order to filter posts that start with How, the following query should be used:

?title=How%

Notice: percentage character is used to encode special characters in URLs, so when sending the request make sure the tools you use properly encode the % character as %25

Null operator

Null operator (null) allows filtering models whose attribute is null.

In order to filter posts that have no attachment, the following query should be used:

?attachment_id=(null)

Negation operator

It is possible to get negated results of a query by prepending the operator with !.

Some examples:

//filter posts from all forums except those with id 7 or 8
?forum_id=!7,8

//filter posts older than 2015
?created_at=!(ge)2015

//filter posts with attachment
?attachment_id=!(null)

Multiple constraints for single attribute

It is possible to apply multiple constraints for a single model's attribute. In order to achieve that provide an array of query filters instead of a single filter:

// filter all posts from year 20** except 2013
?created_at[]=20%&created_at[]=!2013%

Filtering by relation attributes

It is possible to filter by attributes of model's relations - Eloquent's whereHas() will be applied. In order to filter by relation, add the relation attribute to the list of searchable fields in the form relation:attribute. The same string should be used in the query to filter by that relation's attribute, e.g.:

 // allow filtering on user's active field
 protected $searchable = ['user:active'];

 // filter only posts of active users
 ?user:active=1

It's also possible to negate the search and filter objects that don't have a matching relation by applying Eloquent's whereDoesntHave(). In order to do that, prefix relation name with !:

 // allow filtering on comment's approved field
 protected $searchable = ['comments:approved'];

 // filter only posts that have approved comments
 ?comments:approved=1
      
 // filter only posts that have not-approved comments
 ?comments:approved=1
 
 // filter only posts that do not have approved comments
 ?!comments:approved=1

If you want to filter by a nested relation, just provide the nested relation's name with the dot replaced by colon. It's necessary as PHP automatically replaces dots with underscores in the URL.

 // filter only posts that have comments from active authors
 ?comments:author:active=1

Overriding default filter logic

It is possible to process selected filters with your own logic, e.g. when filter name doesn't match the name of attribute that is used for filtering or some custom operations need to be executed. In order to override logic for filter xyz, you'll need to define a method in your model called processXyzFilter. This method should return true, if filter has been processed and default logic should no longer happen.

 // use one filter to search in multiple columns
 protected function processNameFilter(Builder $builder, Constraint $constraint)
 {
     // this logic should happen for LIKE/EQUAL operators only
     if ($constraint->getOperator() === Constraint::OPERATOR_LIKE || $constraint->getOperator() === Constraint::OPERATOR_EQUAL) {
         $builder->where(function ($query) use ($constraint) {
             $query->where('first_name', $constraint->getOperator(), $constraint->getValue())
                 ->orWhere('last_name', $constraint->getOperator(), $constraint->getValue());
         });

         return true;
     }

     // default logic should be executed otherwise
     return false;
 }

In order to override a filter for relation search, replace the colon in the filter name with underscore. If you wanted to override logic for user:active, you'd need to define processUser_ActiveFilter method.