Laravel Resource controller for filtering - laravel

Question

I have a resource Controller for an API that I'm developing for displaying records that can be filtered by Type and Customer and I have the following methods that can get this data:
index
show -> requires an parameter (id)
Can I therefore put a request inside the index method for filtering all of the entries back or is it bad practise for doing this? My code looks like the following:
public function index()
{
$entries = \App\Ent::where(function($en) {
$request = app()->make('request');
if($request->has('type')) {
$en->where('type', '=', $request->get('type'));
}
if($request->has('customer')) {
$en->where('customer', '=', $request->get('customer'));
}
})->get();
dd($entries);
}

Answer 1

Filtering in Laravel is very simple and you don't need to do this. In your Ent model, define the following:
public function scopeFilter($query, $filters)
{
if( isset($filters['type']) ){
$query->where('type', '=', $filters['type']);
}
// keep going for all of your filters
}
And on your Controller index method you can:
public function index()
{
$entries = \App\Ent::filter(['type', 'customer'])->get();
dd($entries);
}
EDIT
To help you make more sense of this, let's filter Ent on the type column in the database.
Route:
Route::get('/ent', 'EntController#index');
Ent Model:
class Ent extends Model
{
public function scopeFilter($query, $filters)
{
if( isset($filters['type']) ){
$query->where('type', '=', $filters['type']);
}
}
}
Ent Controller:
class EntController extends Controller {
index()
{
$entries = \App\Ent::filter(['type'])->get();
return view('ent.index', compact('entries'));
}
}
Let's say for the sake of this example we are just going to put a form on the same blade template we are outputting our list:
#foreach( $entries as $entry )
<p>{{ $entry->type }}</p>
#endforeach
<form method="GET" action="/ent">
{{ csrf_field() }}
<input type="text" name="type" />
<input type="submit" value="Filter" />
</form>
So now, if I were to go into that form and type 'Foo Bar' and hit submit, you would get what would look something like this in SQL
SELECT * FROM Ent WHERE type='foo bar'
Or in other words, all Ent with the type column = 'foo bar'.
When I give a user the ability to type raw text in to filter, I like to give them the benefit of the doubt and use LIKE instead of =. So for example we would just change our scopeFilter method:
if( isset($filters['type']) ){
$query->where('type', 'LIKE', '%' . $filters['type'] . '%');
}
Another thing to note here, the filters[name] is the name of the <input> field, NOT the name of the column in your database. You target the column in the $query extension, NOT in the $filters array. See below example:
if( isset($filters["ent_type"] ){
$query->where('type', '=', $filters["ent_type"]);
}
On my form that would be
<input name="ent_type" type="text" />