Apply Dynamic Filters to Eloquent Models with the Filterable Package

Last updated on April 21st, 2024 by Paul Redmond

Filterable is a Laravel package by Jerome Thayananthajothy that enhances Laravel queries with adaptable, customizable filters and intelligent caching to improve both performance and functionality.

The main features of this package include:

Dynamic Filtering: Apply filters based on request parameters with ease.
Caching: Improve performance by caching query results.
User-specific Filtering: Easily implement filters that depend on the authenticated user.
Custom Filter Methods: Extend the class to add your own filter methods.

Defining Filter classes is at the center of this package, where you can create methods that can apply filtering to Eloquent queries. The package includes a make:filter Artisan command to generate a filter in your app's App\Filters namespace. Here's an example of a filter from the package's README:

namespace App\Filters;
 
use Filterable\Filter;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Builder;
 
class PostFilter extends Filter
{
    protected array $filters = ['status', 'category'];
 
    protected function status(string $value): Builder
    {
        return $this->builder->where('status', $value);
    }
 
    protected function category(int $value): Builder
    {
        return $this->builder->where('category_id', $value);
    }
}

Given a PostFilter, you can utilize this class in a controller with the Post model to filter models based on the HTTP query params:

public function index(Request $request, PostFilter $filter)
{
    // i.e., /posts?status=active&category_id=2
    $query = Post::filter($filter);
 
    $posts = $request->has('paginate')
        ? $query->paginate($request->query('per_page', 20))
        : $query->get();
 
    return response()->json($posts);
}