Laravel With() along side with Where() - php

Question

Take as example the following eloquent code:
Customers::with('ShippingMode')
->with('PaymentMethod')
->with('BarCodes')
->where(function($query) use ($find)
{
$query->where('name', 'like', "%$find%")
->orWhere('vat_number', 'like', "%$find%");
});
Now I would like to add more orWhere conditions but looking into PaymentMethod table, like such:
Customers::with('ShippingMode')
->with('PaymentMethod')
->with('BarCodes')
->where(function($query) use ($find)
{
$query->where('name', 'like', "%$find%")
->orWhere('vat_number', 'like', "%$find%")
->orWhere('PaymentMethod.description', 'like', "%$find%");
});
But this does not work as it returns the error:
Column not found: 1054 Unknown column 'PaymentMethod.descricao' in
'where clause'
I know that if I use the old joins it works great:
Customers::select('customer.*')
->from('customers AS customer')
->leftJoin('payment_methods AS payment_method', 'payment_method.id', '=', 'customer.payment_method_id')
->where(function($query) use ($find)
{
$query->where('name', 'like', "%$find%")
->orWhere('vat_number', 'like', '%$find%')
->orWhere('payment_method.description', 'like', '%$find%');
});
PLEASE NOTE: The variable $find can be empty and when it's empty it returns all the results without filter applied, which means I cannot use the whereHas function.

Answer 1

orWhereHas allow you to add customized constraints to a relationship constraint:
Customers::with('ShippingMode')
->with('PaymentMethod')
->with('BarCodes')
->where(function($query) use ($find) {
$query->where('name', 'like', "%$find%")
->orWhere('vat_number', 'like', "%$find%");
})->orWhereHas('PaymentMethod', function($query) use ($find) {
$query->where('description', 'like', "%$find%");
});

Answer 2

Something like this should work:
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Builder;
Customers::with(['ShippingMode', 'PaymentMethod', 'BarCodes'])
->when($find, function (Builder $query, $find) {
$query->where(function (Builder $query) use ($find) {
$query->where('name', 'like', "%{$find}%")
->orWhere('vat_number', 'like', "%{$find}%")
->orWhereHas('PaymentMethod', function (Builder $query) use ($find) {
$query->where('description', 'like', "%{$find}%");
});
});
})->get();
With when() it will only apply the filter when $find has a value and it allows you to search on the Customer columns with the where() / orWhere() and the PaymentMethod relationship with orWhereHas().
You can read more about when() and whereHas() here:
when
whereHas