# Filtering in PHP
**URL:** https://discourse.getcockpit.com/t/filtering-in-php/2849
**Category:** Uncategorized
**Created:** [August 3, 2023, 2:11pm UTC](https://discourse.getcockpit.com/t/filtering-in-php/2849 "2023-08-03T14:11:33Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@seank1968](https://discourse.getcockpit.com/u/seank1968)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2023, 2:11pm UTC](https://discourse.getcockpit.com/t/filtering-in-php/2849/1 "2023-08-03T14:11:33Z")
I’m using the following:
```auto
$posts = cockpit('collections')->find('Staff', [
'filter' =>
['active' => true,
'first_name' => $name,
],
'sort' => ['last_name' => 1],
]
);
```
‘$name’ is coming from a search form and is working in this example - so if I seach for John, it pulls in all the entries with the first\_name John.
How could I expand it to do following:
1. Ignore the case?
2. Find partial matches. For example, if I search for John it would also find Johnathon
3. Search multiple fields - for example first\_name and last\_name and find matches in either? So, searching for John would return ‘John Smith’, ‘Johnathon Jones’ and ‘Sally Johnson’
Thanks!
---
### Author:  [@artur](https://discourse.getcockpit.com/u/artur)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2023, 9:50am UTC](https://discourse.getcockpit.com/t/filtering-in-php/2849/2 "2023-08-04T09:50:10Z")
Try:
````auto
$posts = cockpit('collections')->find('Staff', [
'filter' => [
'active' => true,
'$or' => [
'first_name' => ['$regex' => $name, '$options' => 'i'],
'last_name' => ['$regex' => $name, '$options' => 'i'],
]
],
'sort' => ['last_name' => 1],
]);
```
````
---
### Author:  [@seank1968](https://discourse.getcockpit.com/u/seank1968)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2023, 10:36am UTC](https://discourse.getcockpit.com/t/filtering-in-php/2849/3 "2023-08-04T10:36:27Z")
@artur thanks - I tried that before but it doesn’t return anything!
Removing the $or section and just using the first\_name or last\_name line works perfectly to get entries with the search string in the name:
```auto
$posts = cockpit('collections')->find('Staff', [
'filter' => [
'active' => true,
'first_name' => ['$regex' => $name, '$options' => 'i'],
],
'sort' => ['last_name' => 1],
]);
```
But using the $or part returns ‘Array ( )’
---
### Author:  [@seank1968](https://discourse.getcockpit.com/u/seank1968)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2023, 11:01am UTC](https://discourse.getcockpit.com/t/filtering-in-php/2849/4 "2023-08-04T11:01:42Z")
@artur Sorted it:
```auto
$posts = cockpit('collections')->find('Staff', [
'filter' => [
'active' => true,
'$or' => [
['first_name' => ['$regex' => $name, '$options' => 'i']],
['last_name' => ['$regex' => $name, '$options' => 'i']]
]
],
'sort' => ['last_name' => 1],
]);
```
Added square brackets around the two $or options!
Thanks!