Laravel soft delete: model::onlyTrashed() returns all - laravel

Question

When I try to view only soft deleted records in Laravel the onlyTrashed returns all records.
As you will see I also have a searchform which complifies things a bit. And I think the searchform is the reason this doesn't work but I don't understand why excactly.
Controller:
public function toTrashbin(Request $request) {
$search = '%' . $request->input('search') . '%';
$students = Student::onlyTrashed()
->where('first_name', 'like', $search)
->orWhere('last_name', 'like', $search)
->orWhere('rnumber', 'like', $search)
->paginate(15)
->appends(['search'=> $request->input('search')]);
return view('admin.students.students_trashbin')->with('students', $students);;
}
View:
{{--searchform--}}
<form method="get" action="/students/trashbin" id="searchForm">
<div class="row">
<div class="col-sm-6 mb-2">
<input type="text" class="form-control" name="search" id="search"
value="{{request()->search}}" placeholder="Search by name or R-number">
</div>
<div class="col-sm-2 mb-2">
<button type="submit" class="btn btn-success btn-block">Search</button>
</div>
</div>
</form>
<hr>
#if (count($students) > 0)
{{--table--}}
<table class="table">
<thead>
<tr>
<th scope="col">Name</th>
<th scope="col">R-number</th>
<th scope="col">Deleted at</th>
<th scope="col">Actions</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
#foreach ($students as $student)
<tr>
<td>{{$student->first_name}} {{$student->last_name}}</td>
<td>{{$student->rnumber}}</td>
<td>{{$student->deleted_at}}</td>
<td>
restore
</td>
</tr>
#endforeach
</tbody>
</table>
{{$students->links()}} {{--pagination--}}
#else
<p>No students found using your searchquery.</p>
#endif
Somehow the view displays all students, both soft deleted and not soft deleted ones.
However: It works perfectly if I remove the 3 "where"s in the controller. But then I can't use search obviously. Does anyone know how I can make this work with search?
Thanks.

Answer 1

Fixed it by changing the controller to this:
public function toTrashbin(Request $request) {
$search = '%' . $request->input('search') . '%';
$conditions = [
['first_name', 'like', $search, 'or'],
['last_name', 'like', $search, 'or'],
['rnumber', 'like', $search, 'or'],
];
$students = Student::onlyTrashed()
->where($conditions)
->paginate(15)
->appends(['search'=> $request->input('search')]);
return view('admin.students.students_trashbin')->with('students', $students);;
}
Honestly still not sure what was wrong with my original controller so if anyone knows the cause, please let me know. But hey, at least I got it to work.

Answer 2

On your first try, Laravel did something like this:
select * from `students` where `students`.`deletedAt` is not null and `last_name` like 'test' or `last_name` like 'test';
On your second approach, the query was mounted like this:
select * from `students` where `students`.`deletedAt` is not null and (`last_name` like 'test' or `last_name` like 'test');
Be extra careful when using "OR" on SQL because it can mess up your results and "ignore" some conditions.
You can control your parentheses doing somethin like this:
$search = '%' . $request->input('search') . '%';
$query = Student::onlyTrashed();
$query->where('votes', '>', 100)
->orWhere(function($query) use ($search) {
$query->where('name', $search)
->where('votes', '>', 50);
});
$query->paginate(15);
Extra information on Closures here: https://laravel.com/docs/7.x/queries#where-clauses
Have a good day!