Cakephp - Index search - php

Question

I have a question about how I can search, for example, by name or surname in the INDEX view.
Is there any plugin or easy-to-use component that does not load the application too much?
Currently, I have a small form in index.ctp with one input field, where I enter what I want to search, and in controller have an if ($ this-> request-> is ('post')) after which to $this->Model->find adds condition WHERE. But I admit that this is not a nice way, it also reload the page.
This is the controller:
public function index()
{
if ($this->request->is('post')) {
$s = '%'.$this->request->getData('Search').'%';
$students = $this->Students->find('all')->where(['OR' => ['name LIKE' => $s, 'lastname LIKE' => $s]]);
$this->set('students', $this->paginate($students));
} else {
$students = $this->paginate($this->Students);
$this->set(compact('students'));
}
}
And this is the index.ctp:
<div class="input-group mb-3">
<?= $this->Form->button(__('<i class="fas fa-search"></i>'), ['escape' => false, 'class' => 'btn btn-primary']) ?>
<?= $this->Form->input('Search', ['type' => 'text', 'class' => 'form-control', 'label' => false]); ?>
<?= $this->Form->end() ?>
</div>

Answer 1

From what I can see you are either after a better solution to handle searching and/or a way of not reloading the page to display your search results.
If this isn't what you are after then please clarify your question to better outline what you would like you solution to look like.
You should be separating your searching out of your index function as that is only to display the content on that page. Adding conditions like you have will end up in you having a really long index function running your whole application based on the differences in the request, which isn't great.
Split out the searching into a separate function which will in turn create a new page for you to display your results.
public function index()
{
$students = $this->paginate($this->Students);
$this->set(compact('students'));
}
public function search()
{
$s = '%' . $this->request->getData('Search') . '%';
$students = $this->Students->find('all')->where(['OR' => ['name LIKE' => $s, 'lastname LIKE' => $s]]);
$this->set('students', $this->paginate($students));
}
This is well described in the tutorial on the CakePHP docs - CMS Tutorial - Creating the Articles Controller and can be related to your application as the index for you contains a form to pass search criteria to your application and the search function/page will then fetch the results and display them for you.
Don't forget to then alter your form to point it to the /search page. - Setting a URL for the Form
You will need to create a search.ctp file in your src/Template/ExampleController folder. Put your html code in there to display the results in a table or however you want to display the search results.
Finally you will need to add a route to your routes.php to allow the /search path in your application.
$routes->connect('/search', ['controller' => 'Example', 'action' => 'search']);
Now if you don't want the page to reload when you use your form then you have to use Ajax and JS/JQuery to make the request to your search method and display the results of the search function on the page dynamically. There are already a lot of good examples of this on stackoverflow and the web for using ajax and jquery for building tables from searches so I won't bother posting them here.
If you want a plugin/library solution then look at this tutorial on having search results displayed in a table using DataTables. - Search Using Datatables

Answer 2

install plugin https://github.com/FriendsOfCake/search
then in search configurations
$this->searchManager()
// Here we will alias the 'q' query param to search the `Students.name`
// field and the `Students.lastname` field, using a LIKE match, with `%`
// both before and after.
->add('q', 'Search.Like', [
'before' => true,
'after' => true,
'fieldMode' => 'OR',
'comparison' => 'LIKE',
'wildcardAny' => '*',
'wildcardOne' => '?',
'field' => ['name', 'lastname']
]);