Question

I am developing a web app using Codeigniter and MongoDB.
I need to create a function that is searching the database using the following criterias.

• Tags
• Owner username
• Status
• Date range

It needs to be flexible enough for users to for example only search by tags or status and leave out the other criterias.

Right now I am using if else structure with different queries that reflect the chosen
criterias. For example the below code. This is very bad way because then I need to create
a query matching every possible combination.

if ($args['status']) {

    $this->mongo_db->select ($select)->
    where('user_name', $args['username']) ->
    where ('status', $args['status']) ->
    where_in_all ('file_tags', $tags) ->
    limit ($limit) ->
    offset ($offset) ->
    get ('files');

} else {

    $this->mongo_db->select ($select)->
    where('user_name', $args['username']) ->
    where_in_all ('file_tags', $tags) ->
    limit ($limit) ->
    offset ($offset) ->
    get ('files');

}

Is there not a better way of doing search in MongoDB?

Answer 1

Why don’t you want to create query based on user output and use it later to get data from mongoDb. Below is pseudo-code

if (status) {
  query.put(status, status)
}

if (tags) {
  query.put(tags, tags)
}

... etc

mongo_db->select ($query) - > limit -> offet -> get