Search in JSON column using Laravel's eloquent

Question

I've been working with Laravel 5.4's eloquent and I've encountered a problem.

I have a database table called posts and in that, a column named as template_ids. It stores the values in json_encoded format like:

["1","25","48"]

Now, I want to apply a filter to my query based on an array of IDs:

$id_access = array:3 [ 
  0 => "1"
  1 => "3"
  2 => "48"
]

What I am trying to do is to search if any of $id_access values is present in the database column, template_ids.

I tried:

Post::where('accessable_to',1)->whereIn('template_ids', $template_access_array)->paginate(3);

Also, I tried:

Post::where('accessable_to',1)->whereRaw("JSON_CONTAINS(template_ids, ".$template_access.")")->paginate(3);

Already viewed this, but it's not working for me.

Answer 1

To see if the template_ids JSON field contains "any" of the values in a needle array, you gonna need to utilize multiple OR'd JSON_CONTAINS conditions which requires MySQL 5.7:

$ids = ['1', '3', '48'];

Post::where('accessable_to', 1)
    ->where(function ($query) use ($ids) {
        $firstId = array_shift($ids);

        $query->whereRaw(
            'JSON_CONTAINS(template_ids, \'["' . $firstId . '"]\')'
        );

        foreach ($ids as $id) {
            $query->orWhereRaw(
                'JSON_CONTAINS(template_ids, \'["' . $id . '"]\')'
            );
        }

        return $query;
    });

return Post::paginate(3);

Laravel's query builder will produce a query like:

SELECT * FROM "posts" 
WHERE "accessable_to" = ? AND (
    JSON_CONTAINS(template_ids, '["1"]') OR 
    JSON_CONTAINS(template_ids, '["3"]') OR 
    JSON_CONTAINS(template_ids, '["48"]')
)

Which targets records that have any of those IDs in their template_ids JSON-typed field.

You might be interested in reading a related Laravel internals proposal.