Laravel Scout with Meilisearch: Why Filtering with >, >=, <, and <= Fails
Problem: You're using Laravel Scout with Meilisearch for fast and efficient search, but you're facing issues when trying to filter results using the >, >=, <, and <= operators. Your filters just don't seem to work as expected.
Simplified: Imagine you're searching for products with a price greater than $100. With Meilisearch, you'd expect to find only products meeting this criteria. However, you find that all products are returned, regardless of their price.
Understanding the Issue:
Meilisearch is a powerful search engine, but it prioritizes speed and relevance over complex numerical filtering. It primarily focuses on text-based searching and ranking. The >, >=, <, and <= operators are designed for numerical comparisons, which Meilisearch doesn't inherently handle well.
Illustrative Code:
Let's assume you have a Product model in your Laravel application with a price attribute:
// Example Product Model
use Laravel\Scout\Searchable;
class Product extends Model
{
use Searchable;
// ...
public function searchableAs()
{
return 'products';
}
public function toSearchableArray()
{
return [
'id' => $this->id,
'name' => $this->name,
'price' => $this->price,
// ... other searchable attributes
];
}
}
Now, imagine you're trying to retrieve products with a price greater than $50 using Laravel Scout:
// Attempting to filter by price
$products = Product::search('')->where('price', '>', 50)->get();
You might expect this to return only products with a price above $50, but it won't work as intended.
Workarounds:
-
Pre-Filtering in Laravel:
You can perform the numerical filtering within Laravel before searching in Meilisearch. This ensures that the search only operates on the relevant subset of data:
$products = Product::where('price', '>', 50)->get(); $results = $products->search('your search term'); -
Custom Filters:
Meilisearch allows you to create custom filters that can handle more complex filtering scenarios. You can define a custom filter that checks for the price range and apply it to your search query.
-
Faceting:
Meilisearch offers faceting, allowing you to group results based on different attributes. While it doesn't directly support
>,>=,<, and<=operators, you can use facets to narrow down results based on price ranges.
Conclusion:
While Meilisearch excels at text-based search, it's not ideally suited for intricate numerical filtering with operators like >, >=, <, and <=. By understanding its limitations and utilizing workarounds like pre-filtering, custom filters, or faceting, you can overcome this hurdle and leverage Meilisearch's speed and efficiency for your Laravel applications.
Resources:
- Meilisearch Documentation: https://docs.meilisearch.com/
- Laravel Scout Documentation: https://laravel.com/docs/9.x/scout
- Meilisearch Community Forum: https://community.meilisearch.com/
