Laravel Eloquent search two optional fields

Question

I'm trying to search two optional tables using eloquent:

$users  = User::where('ProfileType', '=', 2)
                ->where(function($query) {
                    $query->where('BandName', 'LIKE', "%$artist%");
                    $query->or_where('Genre', 'LIKE', "%$genre%");
                })->get();

This works fine for return all results when a user does an empty search, but I am not sure how to adjust this for to search for bandname when that is present and vise versa.

Answer 1

Just to explain what happens on answer below:

Eloquent does a tricky thing here: When you call User::where(...) it returns a Database\\ Query object. This is basically the same thing as DB::table('users')->where(...) , a chainable object for constructing SQL queries.

So having:

// Instantiates a Query object
$query = User::where('ProfileType', '=', '2');
$query->where(function($query) {
    // Adds a clause to the query
    if ($artist = Input::get('artist')) {
        $query->where_nested('BandName', 'LIKE', "%$artist%", 'OR');
    }
    // And another
    if ($genre = Input::get('genre')) {
        $query->where_nested('Genre', 'LIKE', "%$genre%", 'OR');
    }
});

// Executes the query and fetches it's results
$users = $query->get();

Answer 2

Building on Vinicius' answer here's what worked:

// Instantiates a Query object
$query = User::where('ProfileType', '=', '2');

// Adds a clause to the query
if ($artist = Input::get('artist')) {
    $query->where('BandName', 'LIKE', "%$artist%");
    // Temp Usernamesearch
    $query->or_where('NickName', 'LIKE', "%$artist%");
}

// Genre - switch function if artist is not empty
if ($genre = Input::get('genre')) {
    $func = ($artist) ? 'or_where' : 'where';
    $query->$func('Genre', 'LIKE', "%$genre%");
}

// Executes the query and fetches it's results
$users = $query->get();

Turns out that the second optional field must use or_where only if $artist is not set.

Thanks for your help

Answer 3

I think this is what youre after. Your view would have a form to search artist/genre one or the other can be set, or both, or none.

$users = User::where('ProfileType', '=', 2);

if (Input::has('artist')) {
    $users = $users->where('BandName', 'LIKE', '%'.Input::get('artist').'%');
}

if (Input::has('genre')) {
    $users = $users->where('Genre', 'LIKE', '%'.Input::get('genre').'%');
}

$users = $users->get();