Quest

This package enables pseudo fuzzy-searching within Laravel database and Eloquent queries. Due to its pattern matching methods, it only supports MySQL or MariaDB, though I welcome any PRs to enable support for databases like Postgres.

Much of this library is based on the fantastic work of Tom Lingham for the now abandoned Laravel Searchy package. If you're interested in the background of how the fuzzy searching works, check out the readme for that project.

Installation

Pull in the package using composer

composer require caneara/quest

Usage

Quest automatically registers a service provider containing several macros. These macros are then attached to the underlying Illuminate\Database\Query\Builder class.

Filtering results

You can perform a fuzzy-search by calling the whereFuzzy method. This method takes two parameters. The first, is the field name. The second, is the value to use for the search e.g.

DB::table('users')
  ->whereFuzzy('name', 'jd') // matches John Doe
  ->first();

User::whereFuzzy('name', 'jd') // matches John Doe
    ->first();

You can also perform a fuzzy search across multiple columns by chaining several whereFuzzy method calls:

User::whereFuzzy('name', 'jd')  // matches John Doe
    ->whereFuzzy('email', 'gm') // matches @gmail.com
    ->first();

You can also perform searches across multiple columns using orWhereFuzzy method calls:

User::whereFuzzy(function ($query) {
    $query->orWhereFuzzy('name', 'jd'); // matches John Doe
    $query->orWhereFuzzy('email', 'gm'); // matches @gmail.com
})->first();

Ordering results

When using Quest, a 'fuzzy_relevance_*' column will be included in your search results. The * is a wildcard that will be replaced with the name of the field that you are searching on e.g.

User::whereFuzzy('email', 'gm') // fuzzy_relevance_email

This column contains the score that the record received after each of the fuzzy-searching pattern matchers were applied to it. The higher the score, the more closely the record matches the search term.

Of course, you'll want to order the results so that the records with the highest score appear first. To make this easier, Quest includes an orderByFuzzy helper method that wraps the relevant orderBy clauses:

User::whereFuzzy('name', 'jd')
    ->orderByFuzzy('name')
    ->first();

// Equivalent to:

User::whereFuzzy('name', 'jd')
    ->orderBy('fuzzy_relevance_name', 'desc')
    ->first();

If you are searching across multiple fields, you can provide an array to the orderByFuzzy method:

User::whereFuzzy('name', 'jd')
    ->whereFuzzy('email', 'gm')
    ->orderByFuzzy(['name', 'email'])
    ->first();

// Equivalent to:

User::whereFuzzy('name', 'jd')
    ->orderBy('fuzzy_relevance_name', 'desc')
    ->orderBy('fuzzy_relevance_email', 'desc')
    ->first();

Applying a minimum threshold

When using Quest, an overall score will be assigned to each record within the _fuzzy_relevance_ column. This score is represented as an integer between 0 and 295.

Note that the fuzzy_relevance score is not divided by the number of columns. Therefore, it could be up to, for example, 590 if two fields match exactly.

You can enforce a minimum score to restrict the results by using the withMinimumRelevance() method. Setting a higher score will return fewer, but likely more-relevant results.

// Before
User::whereFuzzy('name', 'jd')
    ->having('_fuzzy_relevance_', '>',  70)
    ->first();

// After
User::whereFuzzy('name', 'jd')
    ->withMinimumRelevance(70)
    ->first();

When using orWhereFuzzy include the minimum relevance as an optional third parameter

// Returns results which exceed 70 on the name column or 90 on the email column
User::whereFuzzy(function ($query) {
    $query->orWhereFuzzy('name', 'jd', 70);
    $query->orWhereFuzzy('email', 'gm', 90);
})->get();

Performance (large datasets)

When searching large tables to only confirm whether matches exist, removing sorting and relevance checking will significantly increase query performance. To do this, simply supply false as a third parameter for the whereFuzzy or orWhereFuzzy methods:

DB::table('users')
  ->whereFuzzy('name', 'jd', false) 
  ->orWhereFuzzy('name', 'gm', 0, false);
  ->first();

To adjust the relevance threshold you can filter the relevance data manually if needed.

You can also further improve performance by selectively disabling one or more pattern matchers. Simply supply an array of pattern matchers you want to disable as the fourth parameter e.g.

DB::table('users')
  ->whereFuzzy('name', 'jd', true, [
    'AcronymMatcher',
    'StudlyCaseMatcher',
  ]);
  ->first();

The following pattern matchers can be included in the array:

• ExactMatcher
• StartOfStringMatcher
• AcronymMatcher
• ConsecutiveCharactersMatcher
• StartOfWordsMatcher
• StudlyCaseMatcher
• InStringMatcher
• TimesInStringMatcher

Review the /src/Matchers directory to see what each matcher does for a query.

Limitations

It is not possible to use the paginate method with Quest as the relevance fields are omitted from the secondary query that Laravel runs to get the count of the records required for LengthAwarePaginator. However, you can use the simplePaginate method without issue. In many cases this a more preferable option anyway, particularly when dealing with large datasets as the paginate method becomes slow when scrolling through large numbers of pages.

Contributing

Thank you for considering a contribution to Quest. You are welcome to submit a PR containing improvements, however if they are substantial in nature, please also be sure to include a test or tests.

License

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