Query helper method for filter values containing operators

Basic implementation proposal for yiisoft/yii2#2022

Shortcomings/todo's:
* filtering on non-scalars (where IN statements) not supported
* Numeric properties with a corresponding validation rule will yield
  errors when they contain an alphanumeric operator. These properties'
  rules should be defined as 'string' or 'safe'.
* no implementation example in Gii code (yet).

close #8505

framework/CHANGELOG.md

@@ -283,6 +283,9 @@ Yii Framework 2 Change Log
 - Enh #9263: Avoid extra DB query in RBAC DbManager in case auth item name is empty (samdark)
 - Enh #9268: Improved display of boolean parameters in logged SQL queries (arkhamvm, samdark)
 - Enh: Improved Console helper progress bar ETA time estimation, updated only once per second to avoid flapping (cebe)
+- Enh #8444:  Added `yii\widgets\LinkPager::$linkOptions` to allow configuring HTML attributes of the `a` tags (zinzinday)
+- Enh #8486:  Added support to automatically set the `maxlength` attribute for `Html::activeTextArea()` and `Html::activePassword()` (klimov-paul)
+- Enh #8505: `yii\db\Query` now contains a andFilterCompare() method that allows filtering using operators in the query value (lennartvdd)
 - Chg #6354: `ErrorHandler::logException()` will now log the whole exception object instead of only its string representation (cebe)
 - Chg #8556: Extracted `yii\web\User::getAuthManager()` method (samdark)
 - Chg #9181: `yii\helpers\BaseStringHelper::truncateHtml()` is now using `runtime` directory for `HTMLPurifier` cache (webdevsega)

framework/db/Query.php

@@ -582,6 +582,43 @@ class Query extends Component implements QueryInterface
     }
 
     /**
+     * Adds a filtering condition for a specific column and allow the user to choose a filter operator.
+     *
+     * It adds an additional WHERE condition for the given field and determines the comparison operator
+     * based on the first few characters of the given value.
+     * The condition is added in the same way as in [[andFilterWhere]] so [[isEmpty()|empty values]] are ignored.
+     * The new condition and the existing one will be joined using the 'AND' operator.
+     *
+     * The comparison operator is intelligently determined based on the first few characters in the given value.
+     * In particular, it recognizes the following operators if they appear as the leading characters in the given value:
+     *
+     * - `<`: the column must be less than the given value.
+     * - `>`: the column must be greater than the given value.
+     * - `<=`: the column must be less than or equal to the given value.
+     * - `>=`: the column must be greater than or equal to the given value.
+     * - `<>`: the column must not be the same as the given value.
+     * - `=`: the column must be equal to the given value.
+     * - If none of the above operators is detected, the `$defaultOperator` will be used.
+     *
+     * @param string $name the column name.
+     * @param string $value the column value optionally prepended with the comparison operator.
+     * @param string $defaultOperator The operator to use, when no operator is given in `$value`.
+     * Defaults to `=`, performing an exact match.
+     * @return $this The query object itself
+     * @since 2.0.8
+     */
+    public function andFilterCompare($name, $value, $defaultOperator = '=')
+    {
+        if (preg_match("/^(<>|>=|>|<=|<|=)/", $value, $matches)) {
+            $operator = $matches[1];
+            $value = substr($value, strlen($operator));
+        } else {
+            $operator = $defaultOperator;
+        }
+        return $this->andFilterWhere([$operator, $name, $value]);
+    }
+
+    /**
      * Appends a JOIN part to the query.
      * The first parameter specifies what type of join it is.
      * @param string $type the type of join, such as INNER JOIN, LEFT JOIN.

tests/framework/db/QueryTest.php

@@ -244,6 +244,37 @@ class QueryTest extends DatabaseTestCase
     }
 
     /**
+     * @depends testFilterWhere
+     */
+    public function testAndFilterCompare()
+    {
+        $query = new Query;
+
+        $result = $query->andFilterCompare('name', null);
+        $this->assertInstanceOf('yii\db\Query', $result);
+        $this->assertNull($query->where);
+
+        $query->andFilterCompare('name', '');
+        $this->assertNull($query->where);
+
+        $query->andFilterCompare('name', 'John Doe');
+        $condition = ['=', 'name', 'John Doe'];
+        $this->assertEquals($condition, $query->where);
+
+        $condition = ['and', $condition, ['like', 'name', 'Doe']];
+        $query->andFilterCompare('name', 'Doe', 'like');
+        $this->assertEquals($condition, $query->where);
+
+        $condition = ['and', $condition, ['>', 'rating', '9']];
+        $query->andFilterCompare('rating', '>9');
+        $this->assertEquals($condition, $query->where);
+
+        $condition = ['and', $condition, ['<=', 'value', '100']];
+        $query->andFilterCompare('value', '<=100');
+        $this->assertEquals($condition, $query->where);
+    }
+
+    /**
      * @see https://github.com/yiisoft/yii2/issues/8068
      *
      * @depends testCount