controller

SearchController.php

class SearchController extends \BaseController {


	 public function appendValue($data, $type, $element)
  {
    // operate on the item passed by reference, adding the element and type
    foreach ($data as $key => & $item) {
      $item[$element] = $type;
    }
    return $data;
  }


  public function appendURL($data, $prefix)
  {
    // operate on the item passed by reference, adding the url based on slug
    foreach ($data as $key => & $item) {
      $item['url'] = $item;
    }
    return $data;
  }

	/**
	 * Display a listing of the resource.
	 *
	 * @return Response
	 */
	public function index()
	{
		// Receive the data
		$query = e(Input::get('q',''));

		if(!$query && $query == '') return Response::json(array(), 400);

		// Select on differen tables.
		$users = User::select(array('id','role','email','first_name','last_name'))
		->where('first_name','like','%'.$query.'%')
		->orWhere('last_name','like','%'.$query.'%')
		->orWhere('email','like','%'.$query.'%')
		->orWhere('role','like','%'.$query.'%')
		->get(array('first_name','last_name'))
		->toArray();

		// Data normalization ::
		//$users = $this->appendURL($users, 'users');

		// Add type of data to each line of each set of results.
		$users =  $this->appendValue($users,'user','class');

		// Merge all data into one way
		$data = array_merge($users);

		return Response::json(array(
		'data'=>$data
		));
	}