[FIXED] What will the best solution for this multiple optional filter?

Issue

These are all optional fields, so will I have to write multiple queries with conditions or is there any way to handle this using Laravel? What will be the query looks like?

Thanks

Solution

It depends a bit on how the filters are submitted, but you can do one of the following two things (and probably a gazillion more...):

public function listCars(Request $request)
{
    $cars = Car::when($request->get('make'), function ($query, $make) {
            $query->where('make', $make);
        })
        ->when($request->get('model'), function ($query, $model) {
            $query->where('model', $model);
        })
        ->...
        ->get();

    // do what you have to do
}

So you are basically wrapping your query builder calls in when($value, $callback), which will only execute $callback if $value evaluates to true. When you retrieve a not set parameter with $request->get('parameter'), it will return null and the callback is not executed. But be careful, if $value is 0 it will also not execute the callback. So be sure you don't have this as an index.

As alternative to this, you can also do the same thing but with a bit less eloquent expressions...

public function listCars(Request $request)
{
    $query = Car::query();

    if($request->filled('make')) {
        $query->where('make', $request->get('make'));
    }
    if($request->filled('model')) {
        $query->where('model', $request->get('model'));
    }

    // some more filtering, sorting, ... here

    $cars = $query->get();

    // do what you have to do
}

Answered By - Namoshek

Answer Checked By - Marie Seifert (PHPFixing Admin)