Laravel Filterable

This package allows you to easily handle database filtering through query strings. The idea is taken from one of the Jeffrey's videos (behind the paywall). One quick example might look like this: /users?filter-username=~joe will result in SQL query select * from users where "username" like '%joe%'.

Installation

You can install the package via composer:

composer require kyslik/laravel-filterable

If you are using Laravel 7:

composer require kyslik/laravel-filterable dev-L7

Laravel will discover the package by itself. If you feel old-school, disable auto-discovery and add Kyslik\LaravelFilterable\FilterableServiceProvider::class to the providers array in your config/app.php.

You may continue by publishing configuration by issuing following artisan command php artisan vendor:publish.

Introduction

Package lets you to create && apply two kinds of filters custom and generic.

Custom filters

Custom filters are just like in Jeffrey's video. You define a logic on a builder instance and package applies it via local scope.

Let's say a product requires displaying recently created records. You create a method recent($minutes = null) inside a filter class, which returns Builder instance:

public function recent($minutes = null): \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Builder
{
    $minutes = (is_numeric($minutes)) ? $minutes : 30;

    return $this->builder->where('created_at', '>=', Carbon\Carbon::now()->subMinutes($minutes));
}

Note: full example is shown later on

Generic filters

Generic filters are those defined in config file. By default, the package supports filtering timestamps, ranges, ins, booleans and strings.

/?filter-created_at=t>=1510952444
/?filter-id=><1,19
/?filter-id=i=1,5,10,12
/?filter-admin=b=yes
/?filter-username=joe
/?filter-username=~joe
/?filter-username=~joe&filter-admin=b=yes&filter-created_at=t=1510952444

Default operator matrix for generic filters

operator	accepts	description
=	string	equal
!=	string	not equal
>	string	greater than
<	string	less than
>=	string	equal or greater than
<=	string	equal or less than
~	string	like
!~	string	not like
><	comma separated list	between
!><	comma separated list	not between
i=	comma separated list	in
i!=	comma separated list	not in
b=	1, 0, true, false, yes, no	equal
b!=	1, 0, true, false, yes, no	not equal
t=	UNIX timestamp	equal
t!=	UNIX timestamp	not equal
t>	UNIX timestamp	greater than
t<	UNIX timestamp	less than
t>=	UNIX timestamp	equal or greater than
t<=	UNIX timestamp	equal or less than
t><	UNIX timestamp	between
t!><	UNIX timestamp	not between

Usage

While using both custom or generic filters you must:

1. have local scope on model with the signature scopeFilter(Builder $query, FILTERNAME $filters)
2. have particular (FILTERNAME) filter class that extends one of:
   • Kyslik\LaravelFilterable\Generic\Filter class - allows usage of both custom & generic filters
   • Kyslik\LaravelFilterable\Filter class - allows usage of only custom filters
3. call a scope within a controller

make:filter command

You can use the following command to create a new filter.

php artisan make:filter SomeFilter

This will create a new Custom filter in the app/Filters directory. To create a Generic filter just add the --generic (-g) flag to the command:

php artisan make:filter SomeGenericFilter -g

Lastly, you can override the default namespace by changing the namespace config value e.g.

config/filterable.php

return [
    'namespace' => 'Http\Filters',
    ...
];

Example with custom filters

Let's say you want to use filterable on User model. You will have to create the filter class App/Filters/UserFilter.php (php artisan make:filter UserFilter), specify filterMap() and filter method (recent(...)) with the custom logic.

<?php
namespace App\Filters;

use Kyslik\LaravelFilterable\Filter;

class UserFilter extends Filter
{
    public function filterMap(): array
    {
        return ['recent' => ['recently', 'recent']];
    }

    public function recent($minutes = null)
    {
        $minutes = (is_numeric($minutes)) ? $minutes : 30;

        return $this->builder->where('created_at', '>=', \Carbon\Carbon::now()->subMinutes($minutes)->toDateTimeString());
    }
}

Note: filterMap() shall return an associative array where key is a method name and value is either alias or array of aliases

Now add a local scope to the User model via Filterable:

use Kyslik\LaravelFilterable\Filterable;

...
class User extends Model
{
    use Filterable;
    ...
}

Finally, call the scope in a controller like so:

use App\Filters\UserFilter;
...
public function index(User $user, UserFilter $filters)
{
    return $user->filter($filters)->paginate();
}

Now end-user can visit users?recent or users?recently or users?recent=25 and results will be filtered by recent() method defined in UserFilter class.

Example with generic filters

Let's say you want to use generic filters on User model. You will have to create filter class App/Filters/UserFilter.php (php artisan make:filter UserFilter -g) and specify $filterables just like below:

<?php
namespace App\Filters;

use Kyslik\LaravelFilterable\Generic\Filter;

class UserFilter extends Filter
{
    protected $filterables = ['id', 'username', 'email', 'created_at', 'updated_at'];
}

Next, you will have to add a local scope to the User model via Filterable:

use Kyslik\LaravelFilterable\Filterable;

...
class User extends Model
{
    use Filterable;
    ...
}

Finally, call the scope in a controller like so:

use App\Filters\UserFilter;
...
public function index(User $user, UserFilter $filters)
{
    return $user->filter($filters)->paginate();
}

Now you are ready to filter User model.

Note: behind the scenes ...\Generic\Filter class extends Filter class, therefore using ...\Generic\Filter also enables you to apply custom filters defined within the filter class

Additional configuration

While using generic filters you may define which generics should be allowed. Define settings() method in a filter class, see below:

use Kyslik\LaravelFilterable\Generic\Filter
...
class UserFilter extends Filter
{
    protected $filterables = ['id', 'username', 'email', 'created_at', 'updated_at'];

    protected function settings()
    {
        // global settings for this filter, pick either "except" or "only" logic
        $this->only(['=', '~', '!~']);
        // $this->except(['!=']);

        // settings applied only to some columns, these settings ignore the "global" settings above
        $this->for(['username', 'id'])->only(['!=', '>=', '=', '~']);
        $this->for(['id'])->only(['=', '!=', '~']); // settings for "id" will be re-written
    }
}

Additional features

Default filtering

In case you need to apply a filter when no filter is applied yet (determined by what query-string contains at the given request), you can use the following code in the controller:

public function index(User $user, UserFilter $filter)
{
    // will redirect and "apply" the `recent` and `filter-id` filters 
    // if not a single filter from UserFilter is applied
    $filter->default(['recent' => now()->toDateTimeString(), 'filter-id' => '!=5']);

    return $user->filter($filter)->paginate();
}

End-user is going be redirected from http://filters.test/users to http://filters.test/users?recent=2018-10-01 13:52:40&filter-id=!=5. In case the filter that you specify as default does not exist Kyslik\LaravelFilterable\Exceptions\InvalidArgumentException is thrown.

Caution: be careful of infinite redirects

You can read more about the feature in the original issue #10.

JoinSupport for filters

TBA

You can read more about the feature in the original PR #9.

Testing

composer test

Changelog

Please see CHANGELOG for more information what has changed recently.

Contributing

Please see CONTRIBUTING for details.

Security

If you discover any security related issues, please email martin.kiesel@gmail.com instead of using the issue tracker.

Credits

• kyslik
• All Contributors

License

The MIT License (MIT). Please see License File for more information.