What model to use to query customer_entity_varchar table in Magento 2?

Question

I have a custom varchar attribute stored on customers. I've been struggling to find the proper way to query for a specific attribute value without going straight to SQL joins. What is the right way to query a custom attribute from a model?

e.g. customer a has "my_attribute" value of "3aF"

How do I query the customer model / collection to find the user based on that value?

Answer 1

You can use the customer repository located at app/code/Magento/Customer/Model/ResourceModel/CustomerRepository.php (having API \Magento\Customer\Api\CustomerRepositoryInterface) like:

/**
 * @var \Magento\Customer\Api\CustomerRepositoryInterface
 */
protected $customerRepository;

/**
 * @var \Magento\Framework\Api\SearchCriteriaInterface
 */
protected $searchCriteria;

/**
 * @var \Magento\Framework\Api\Search\FilterGroup
 */
protected $filterGroup;

/**
 * @var \Magento\Framework\Api\FilterBuilder
 */
protected $filterBuilder;

/**
 * @param \Magento\Customer\Api\CustomerRepositoryInterface $customerRepository
 * @param \Magento\Framework\Api\SearchCriteriaInterface $criteria
 * @param \Magento\Framework\Api\Search\FilterGroup $filterGroup
 * @param \Magento\Framework\Api\FilterBuilder $filterBuilder
 */
public function __construct(
    \Magento\Customer\Api\CustomerRepositoryInterface $customerRepository,
    \Magento\Framework\Api\SearchCriteriaInterface $criteria,
    \Magento\Framework\Api\Search\FilterGroup $filterGroup,
    \Magento\Framework\Api\FilterBuilder $filterBuilder
) {
    $this->customerRepository = $customerRepository;
    $this->searchCriteria = $criteria;
    $this->filterGroup = $filterGroup;
    $this->filterBuilder = $filterBuilder;
    $customers = $this->searchCustomersByAttributeValue('my_attribute', '3aF');
}

public function searchCustomersByAttributeValue($attributeCode, $value)
{
    $this->filterGroup->setFilters(
        [
            $this->filterBuilder
                ->setField($attributeCode)
                ->setConditionType('eq')
                ->setValue($value)
                ->create()
        ]
    );

    $this->searchCriteria->setFilterGroups([$this->filterGroup]);
    $customersList = $this->customerRepository->getList($this->searchCriteria);
    $customers = $customersList->getItems();

    return $customers;
}

As a result you have the list of the matched customers:

Here (in dev docs) you can find some other filter types.