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Universal Search Filter for Laravel

A drop-in trait and query builder macro that turns a single search box into rich conditions across selected columns, relations, and casts — with optional Scout integration and relevance ranking.

Why?

Most apps need a "one box" search that just works across names, emails, and related records without hand-writing SQL each time. This package gives you a clean universalSearch() scope plus a whereUniversalSearch() macro you can apply to any Eloquent query.

Features

• Single text box -> many columns and relations
• Column weights and simple relevance ordering
• Fuzzy matching (configurable)
• Works with relations via whereHas
• Pagination friendly (paginate() as usual)
• Optional Laravel Scout adapter (when installed)
• Zero-config defaults + per-model config overrides

Installation

This publishes config/universal_search.php to tweak defaults.

Quick Start

In your Eloquent model:

Then in a controller:

The scope adds a computed _universal_relevance column, and orders by it (higher is better).

What is weight?

Weight is simply a number that shows how important a column (or relation) is compared to others when calculating the relevance score.

Here is how it works:

• When you search, the package checks each column you configured (like name, email, phone) to see if the search tokens match.
• Each match adds to a computed column called _universal_relevance.
• The weight you assign decides how many “points” a match in that column adds.

For example:

If you search for "alice":

• A hit in the name column adds 5 points.
• A hit in the email column adds 3 points.
• A hit in the status column adds only 1 point.

The query then orders by _universal_relevance DESC, so results with matches in high-weighted columns appear first.

So weight = ranking priority. It does not remove columns from search, it just decides which matches push a record higher in the list.

Using the Query Builder Macro

If you are on the Query Builder directly (no model) and want a simple multi-column search:

Scout (Optional)

If you have Laravel Scout and your model uses the Searchable trait, enable the setting in config/universal_search.php:

The scope will route searches via Scout, then hydrate your Eloquent query based on the keys returned. If no results are found, it falls back to the Eloquent driver.

Configuration

config/universal_search.php:

• columns: default columns when a model does not provide its own list
• relations: relation => [columns] pairs
• weights: increase importance of certain columns/relations
• fuzzy: true uses %token%, false uses prefix token%
• min_token_length: ignore very short tokens
• use_scout_when_available: prefer Scout when the model is searchable

Notes on Relevance

The package builds a simple relevance score with a CASE WHEN column LIKE ? THEN weight sum across tokens and columns. This is portable and works on MySQL, Postgres, and SQLite. For advanced ranking, consider switching to Scout with a dedicated engine (e.g., Meilisearch, Algolia, TNTSearch).

Examples

Search users by "john doe" across users and their posts:

Provide options at call site:

Use only the macro with manual columns:

Testing (stub)

You can write tests by making a few models with the trait and seeding a handful of rows, then asserting counts and order of _universal_relevance.

License

MIT

Tailored Defaults

Out of the box, the config ships with useful defaults:

• columns: name, email, title, phone, reference, status
• weights: name (5), email (4), title/reference (3), status (1)
• Empty relations so you can opt-in per model

Override at the model level by defining $universalSearch or globally by publishing the config.

Running Tests

This package uses PHPUnit with Orchestra Testbench.

The test suite provisions an in-memory SQLite database, runs simple migrations, seeds demo data, then verifies:

• token parsing for quoted phrases
• column and relation search results
• relevance column is appended and used for ordering
• macro usage on the plain query builder
• fuzzy vs prefix matching