How to get rid of too many if statements in laravel?

Question

I would like to create a more readable code by eliminating too many if statements but still does the job. I have tried creating a private method and extract the date range query and return the builder instance but whenever I do that, it does not return the correct builder query result so I end up smashing everything up on this method.

Other parameters will be added soon, so the if statements would pill up very fast. :(

Any tip on how to improve would be much appreciated. Thanks!

/**
 * @param array $params
 *
 * @param $orderBy
 * @param $sortBy
 *
 * @return Collection
 *
 * Sample:
 * `/orders?release_date_start=2018-01-01&release_date_end=2018-02-20&firm_id=3` OR
 * `/orders?claimId=3&status=completed`
 *
 * Problem: Too many if statements
 *
 */
public function findOrdersBy(array $params, $orderBy = 'id', $sortBy = 'asc'): Collection
{
    $release_date_start = array_get($params, 'release_date_start');
    $release_date_end = array_get($params, 'release_date_end');
    $claimId = array_get($params, 'claimId');
    $firm_id = array_get($params, 'firm_id');
    $status = array_get($params, 'status');

    $orders = $this->model->newQuery();

    if (!is_null($release_date_start) && !is_null($release_date_end)) {
        $orders->whereBetween('releaseDate', [$release_date_start, $release_date_end]);
    } else {
        if (!is_null($release_date_start)) {
            $orders->where('releaseDate', '>=', $release_date_start);
        } else {
            if (!is_null($release_date_end)) {
                $orders->where('releaseDate', '<=', $release_date_end);
            }
        }
    }

    if (!is_null($claimId)) {
        $orders->where(compact('claimId'));
    }

    if (!is_null($firm_id)) {
        $orders->orWhere(compact('firm_id'));
    }

    if (!is_null($status)) {
        $orders->where(compact('status'));
    }

    return $orders->orderBy($orderBy, $sortBy)->get();
}

Answer 1

if you are interested in using collection methods then you can use when() collection method to omit your if-else statements. So according to your statement it will look something like:

$orders->when(!is_null($release_date_start) && !is_null($release_date_end), function($q) {
    $q->whereBetween('releaseDate', [$release_date_start, $release_date_end]);
}, function($q) {
    $q->when(!is_null($release_date_start), function($q) {
        $q->where('releaseDate', '>=', $release_date_start);
    }, function($q) {
        $q->when(!is_null($release_date_end), function($q) {
            $q->where('releaseDate', '<=', $release_date_end);
        })
    })
})
->when(!is_null($claimId), function($q) {
    $q->where(compact('claimId'));
})
->when(!is_null($firm_id), function($q) {
    $q->orWhere(compact('firm_id'));
})
->when(!is_null($status), function($q) {
    $q->where(compact('status'));
})

For more information you can see conditional-clauses in documentation. Hope this helps.

Answer 2

One option you can use is ternary operation in php like this:

$claimId ? $orders->where(compact('claimId')) : ;
$firm_id ? $orders->orWhere(compact('firm_id')) : ;
$status ?  $orders->where(compact('status')) : ;

It would be cleaner than is statements code.

Another option you can use in laravel is Conditional Clauses

Answer 3

Thanks for your suggestions but I came up with another solution:

/**
 * @param array $params
 *
 * @param $orderBy
 * @param $sortBy
 *
 * @return Collection
 */
public function findOrdersBy(array $params, $orderBy = 'id', $sortBy = 'asc'): Collection
{
    $release_date_start = array_get($params, 'release_date_start');
    $release_date_end = array_get($params, 'release_date_end');

    $orders = $this->model->newQuery();

    if (!is_null($release_date_start) && !is_null($release_date_end)) {
        $orders->whereBetween('releaseDate', [$release_date_start, $release_date_end]);
    } else {
        if (!is_null($release_date_start)) {
            $orders->where('releaseDate', '>=', $release_date_start);
        } else {
            if (!is_null($release_date_end)) {
                $orders->where('releaseDate', '<=', $release_date_end);
            }
        }
    }

    $fields = collect($params)->except($this->filtersArray())->all();
    $orders = $this->includeQuery($orders, $fields);

    return $orders->orderBy($orderBy, $sortBy)->get();
}

/**
 * @param Builder $orderBuilder
 * @param array $params
 *
 * @return Builder
 */
private function includeQuery(Builder $orderBuilder, ... $params) : Builder
{
    $orders = [];
    foreach ($params as $param) {
        $orders = $orderBuilder->where($param);
    }

    return $orders;
}

/**
 * @return array
 */
private function filtersArray() : array
{
    return [
        'release_date_start',
        'release_date_end',
        'order_by',
        'sort_by',
        'includes'
    ];
}

The main factor on the private method includeQuery(Builder $orderBuilder, ... $params) which takes $params as variable length argument . We just iterate the variables being passed as a query parameter /orders?code=123&something=test and pass those as a where() clause in the query builder.

Some parameters may not be a property of your object so we have to filter only the query params that match the object properties. So I created a filtersArray() that would return the parameters to be excluded and prevent an error.

Hmmm, actually, while writing this, I should have the opposite which is only() otherwise it will have an infinite of things to exclude. :) That would be another refactor I guess. :P