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.
Pull in the package using composer
composer require cobraprojects/quest
Quest automatically registers a service provider containing several macros. These macros are then attached to the underlying Illuminate\Database\Query\Builder
class.
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();
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();
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();
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.
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.
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.
The MIT License (MIT). Please see License File for more information.