Get Search term in custom Observer

Question

I want to retrieve the search term in my Observer for use elsewhere but I cant seem to find out how to extract the data.

So far I have tried this (search term is Football):

events.xml:

<event name='abstract_search_result_load_before'>
        <observer
           name='Path\To\This\Search.php'
           instance='Path\To\This\Search.php'
        />
</event>

Search Observer:

public function execute(\Magento\Framework\Event\Observer $observer) {
    $this->myhelper ->log('search');

    $event = $observer->getEvent();
    $collection = $event->getData('collection');
    $search = $collection->getSearchCriteria();

    $this->myhelper->log('************' . var_export($search, true));
}

Produces:

main.INFO: search [] []
main.INFO: ************Magento\CatalogInventory\Model\ResourceModel\Stock\Status\StockStatusCriteria::__set_state(array(
   'data' => 
  array (
    'fields' => 
    array (
      'list' => 
      array (
      ),
    ),
    'filters' => 
    array (
      'list' => 
      array (
      ),
    ),
    'orders' => 
    array (
      'list' => 
      array (
      ),
    ),
    'criteria_list' => 
    array (
      'list' => 
      array (
      ),
    ),
    'initial_condition' => true,
    'products_filter' => '7',
    'website_filter' => '1',
  ),
   'mapperInterfaceName' => 'Magento\\CatalogInventory\\Model\\ResourceModel\\Stock\\Status\\StockStatusCriteriaMapper',
)) [] []

Answer 1

As stated in the comments, Magento 2 uses SearchCriteria objects in many places, not just the catalog search. So in this case, there is no "search term".

Which event you should use depends on what you actually want to do. But on a search request you should be able to retrieve the current query like this at any time:

public function __construct(\Magento\Search\Model\QueryFactory $queryFactory)
{
    $this->queryFactory = $queryFactory;
}

public function execute(\Magento\Framework\Event\Observer $observer)
{
    $searchTerm = $this->queryFactory->get()->getQueryText();
}

Because the search result controller uses a shared instance of Magento\Search\Model\Query which is managed by the QueryFactory instance.

Answer 2

Is this what you are looking for?

Mage::helper('catalogSearch')->getQuery()->getQueryText();