Adding Model::whereEmpty('column') and Model::whereNotEmpty('column') to the query builder

[kylemilloy]

I have an eloquent model where sometimes the value is NULL and sometimes it's an empty string and with the DB I'm using I need to use the following to get both values:

Model::whereNull('column')
  ->orWhere('column', '')

What I think might be a nice helper function is where we check for whereEmpty('column') instead. My idea here is that this follows PHP's empty($var) method and behind the scenes would evaluate similarly.

// if `column` is NULL, false, 0, '', or [] it will be returned
Model::whereEmpty('column')

// if `column` is NOT NULL, false, 0, '', or [] it will be returned
Model::whereNotEmpty('column')

I'm not wild about including JSON/arrays into this as that might have other side effects (like shouldn't {} also be empty?) but am looking to bounce some ideas off people and can add this.

Similar discussion here but looks like it never got traction.

Edit

Might also be good to include orWhereEmpty and orWhereNotEmpty? But maybe that's a yagni situation.

[hypnodev]

To be honest would make sense, but isn't more safe to review the place where field is updated and force null in case is an empty string?

[kylemilloy]

In the scope of an application, you're right: it's safer (and also probably more performant) to sanitize the data before insert so that I'm only having to search for NULL.

The one hitch I have is that I do not have total control over the data as I'm inheriting a legacy DB that has multiplpe values (null and ''...and even 'undefined' 🙄) that I need to account for. Going forward the plan would be to replace the endpoint that inserts data with something that will prevent this but at this time that feature is out of scope.