Documentation Request: Clarity around searchable field types

[bkuhl]

I have a system where it's very common we look up resources by an external ID. The IDs are stored as integers within the database and not a string, which means they don't work well with the global search on some occasions. For example, if I search for 1054541801417093100 no results are found, but if I search for 10545418014170931 it does find a record, even when 1054541801417093100 is the actual value in the database. I confirmed there's nothing funky happening to the value (e.g. number being changed due to int conversion) or anything, it seems to be mysql's fault. The solution I came up with was to remove the value from the search field:

    /**
     * The columns that should be searched.
     *
     * @var array
     */
    public static $search = [
        'email', 'external_id', 'username',
    ];

and instead add a custom condition:

    public static function indexQuery(NovaRequest $request, $query)
    {
        // Avoid using a LIKE match and compare the value exactly
        if (!empty($request->search)) {
            $query->orWhere('external_id', $request->search);
        }
        return $query;
     }

This generates the following SQL when searching:

... from `users` where ((`users`.`email` like ? or `users`.`username` like ?) or `external_id` = ?)

I think it might be good to update the phpdoc for $search to explain that it's for string/text fields and not integers.