Codeigniter combine where_in and like active record queries

Question

I have the following active record query:

$this->db->select('id, email, first_name, last_name, current_location_state, current_location, avatar, avatar_fb');
          $this->db->from('users');
          $this->db->like('first_name', $search);
          $this->db->or_like('last_name', $search);
          $this->db->or_like("CONCAT(first_name, ' ', last_name)", $search);
          $this->db->or_like('email', $search);
          $this->db->where_in('id', $ids);

This is a function that has an array $ids, which has the ids of my friends. I want to search for friends that match my "like" queries, but only have one of the id's in the $ids variable.

I'm pretty sure i need to combine where_in and all the like statements so its something like (WHERE_IN $ids && Like Statements).

I'm not great at mysql so any help here would be appreciated.

Thanks!

function narrow_connections($search) {

       //First get all this users connections...
       $connections = $this->get_connections($this->session->userdata('user_id'), 0, 0);

       if(empty($connections)) {
          return array();
       }else {

          //Need to get an array of id's
          $ids = array();
          foreach($connections as $con) {
             array_push($ids, $con['id']);
          }

          //Now that we have an array of ID's, find all users that have one of the ids (our connections), AND match a search term to narrow down
          //the results. 

          $this->db->select('id, email, first_name, last_name, current_location_state, current_location, avatar, avatar_fb');
          $this->db->from('users');
          $this->db->like('first_name', $search);
          $this->db->or_like('last_name', $search);
          $this->db->or_like("CONCAT(first_name, ' ', last_name)", $search);
          $this->db->or_like('email', $search);
          $this->db->where_in('id', $ids);
          $query = $this->db->get();
          $data = array();

          foreach ($query->result() as $row) {
          $data[] = array(
            'id' => $row->id,
            'email' => $row->email,
            'first_name' => $row->first_name,
            'last_name' => $row->last_name,
            'current_location_state' => $row->current_location_state,
            'current_location' => $row->current_location,
            'avatar' => $row->avatar,
            'avatar_fb' => $row->avatar_fb,
          );
          }
          return $data;

       }
     }

Solution

Do you want to find all the friends? If there are only one id, then you don't need like part, as you already found your friend. On the other part, if you not sure about id of your friends, and just want to find all friends matching your like criteria, you may remove where_in part.

This will find your friends:

$this->db->select('id, email, first_name, last_name, current_location_state, current_location, avatar, avatar_fb');
$this->db->from('users');
$this->db->like('first_name', $search);
$this->db->or_like('last_name', $search);
$this->db->or_like("CONCAT(first_name, ' ', last_name)", $search);
$this->db->or_like('email', $search);

Considering there's only one id, such query will find only one friend:

$this->db->select('id, email, first_name, last_name, current_location_state, current_location, avatar, avatar_fb');
$this->db->from('users');
$this->db->where_in('id', $ids);

EDIT

Sometimes, with codeigniter, it is better to use a raw query:

$this->db->query('
  SELECT `id`, `email`, `first_name`, `last_name`, `current_location_state`, `current_location`, `avatar`, `avatar_fb`
  FROM `users`
  WHERE (
    `first_name` like ?
    or `last_name` like ? 
    or concat(`first_name`, ' ', `last_name`) like ? 
    or `email` like ?)
  AND `id` in('
    .join(',',
    array_map(function($e) { return (int) $e; }, $ids))
    .')',
  "%$search%", "%$search%", "%$search%", "$search")->result();