Request Search

Coming soon...

The Joy of Search Bars

Alright, let's take a fun detour away from Doctrine Relationships. I know, I know, you're wondering why we would ever want to leave such a thrilling topic. Well, we're going to spice things up by adding a search bar to our page. Just trust me on this one, it's going to be good.

First, let's pop open our index.html.twig template. Right at the top, I'm going to paste in a search input. Nothing too fancy here, just an input type equals text, placeholder equals search, and then a smattering of classes and a swanky SVG to make it look all pretty and professional.

Now, to actually let this bad boy submit, we need to wrap it in a form tag.
So, we'll go with `form equals`, and for the action, we're going to have
this submit right back to this page. We'll use `{{ path('app_part_index')
}}` for that. Also, let's add a `name="query"`. And because this is a
search form, we want any of our fields to show up in the URL. So, we're
going to say `method equals git`.

## Getting the Request

Now let's head over to our `PartController.php` and add the `Request`
object as an argument to your controller. You might remember that you can
auto-wire services. While the `Request` object is not technically a
service, Symfony is cool enough to let it be auto-wired anyway. So, grab
the one from `Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request`, and you can call
this anything, but let's stick with `Request` because, well, it's pretty
self-explanatory. 

```php $query = $request->query->get('query'); ```

Just to make sure this is working, let's `dd($query);` and see what we got.
Ah, look at that! It's the string 'holodeck'. 

## Enhancing the Search

Next, we're going to pimp our `findAllOrderedByPrice` function to allow for
a search. We can get rid of our `dd($query);` and pass the query right into
our method. 

```php StarshipPartRepository::findAllOrderedByPrice($query) ```

We're going to have to break this into multiple lines and add an `if`
statement. We're also going to change the return to `$qb =
$this->createQueryBuilder('sp');` and get rid of the `getQuery()` and
`getResults()`, because we only want the `QueryBuilder` for now.

Now the magic happens. If we have a search, we're going to add a `andWhere`
clause that checks if the lower case name of our Starship part is like our
search. I know it looks a bit funky, but bear with me, that's how it's
done. 

```php if ($search) {     $qb->andWhere('LOWER(sp.name) LIKE
:search')->setParameter('search', '%'.strtolower($search).'%'); } ```

Finally, we'll return our query results. 

```php return $qb->getQuery()->getResult(); ```

## Preserving the Search Value

One thing you might notice is that we kind of lose our search value after a
search. We don't see 'holodeck' in there anymore, and that's just rude.
Let's fix that. Back in our template, we're going to add a `value="{{
app.request.query.get('query') }}"`. 

## Searching on Multiple Fields

Now, wouldn't it be great to also search on the notes? Let's say I search
for 'controls'. Right now, nothing shows up. So, I want to search on the
notes but also on the name. 

We're going to need to use some `or` logic here. Back in our repository,
we're going to add an `or` to our `andWhere` clause. You might be tempted
to use `orWhere`, but let's not do that. It can get a bit confusing with
the logical parentheses. Trust me, you'll thank me later. Instead, we can
use `andWhere` and put the `or` right inside.

```php $qb->andWhere('LOWER(sp.name) LIKE :search OR LOWER(sp.notes) LIKE
:search') ```

And there we have it! We can now search on the notes, on the name, or both.
The key takeaway here is when you want to use `orWhere`, embed it inside an
`andWhere`, and you'll have full control over where the logical parentheses
go.

Alright, with that exciting detour complete, let's head back on track and
talk about the final relationship type, many to many. Strap in, it's going
to be a wild ride!