If user belongs to group in October CMS - User plugin

I'm trying to filter the users from a specific user group in a component in PHP. First, I'm search for a specific user based on a keyword, next I want to test if this user belongs to one specific group 'mygroupcode'. Ideally these two statements should be combined.

I've tried the following:

public function onSelect() {
    $s2_opts = [];
    foreach(User::where('surname', 'LIKE', '%'.Input::get('q').'%')->orWhere('name', 'LIKE', '%'.Input::get('q').'%')->get() as $user) {
        if($user->groups()->whereName('mygroupcode')->exists()) {
            array_push($s2_opts, array('id' => $user->id, 'text' => $user->name . ' ' . $user->surname));
        }
    }
    return json_encode($s2_opts);
}

This throws a MySQL-error. Something like table mydb.groups not found... In the database, it should look for user_groups instead.

Also, I've tried:

public function onSelect() {
    $s2_opts = [];
    foreach(User::where('surname', 'LIKE', '%'.Input::get('q').'%')->orWhere('name', 'LIKE', '%'.Input::get('q').'%')->get() as $user) {
        if(in_array('mygroupcode',array_keys($user->groups))) {
            array_push($s2_opts, array('id' => $user->id, 'text' => $user->name . ' ' . $user->surname));
        }
    }
    return json_encode($s2_opts);
}

This also yields a MySQL error. Similar, also about table groups not being found.

Also, I've noticed there's a method called inGroup(), but this yields the same error...

public function onSelect() {
    $s2_opts = [];
    foreach(User::where('surname', 'LIKE', '%'.Input::get('q').'%')->orWhere('name', 'LIKE', '%'.Input::get('q').'%')->get() as $user) {
        if($user->inGroup('mygroupcode')) {
            array_push($s2_opts, array('id' => $user->id, 'text' => $user->name . ' ' . $user->surname));
        }
    }
    return json_encode($s2_opts);
}

What am I doing wrong? Thanks in advance for your time.

Please note the following related questions. They are regarding backend user lists, I am looking to filter down frontend users.

• Check if backend user belongs to group
• If backend user belongs to group
• Backend user in group with Twig

If you look at the InGroup function the param is not a string (code) but an Object :

/**
 * See if the user is in the given group.
 * @param Group $group
 * @return bool
 */
public function inGroup($group)
{
    foreach ($this->getGroups() as $_group) {
        if ($_group->getKey() == $group->getKey()) {  
            return true;
        }
    }

    return false;
}

You can add to your UserGroup model a method let's say :

const GROUP_ADMIN     =   'admin'; // admin is the group unique code

public static function getAdminGroup()
 {
    return self::where('code', self::GROUP_ADMIN)->first() ;
 }

Then you can use this method to check if the User is in the Group

public function onSelect() {

    $q = Input('q', false );

    if (!empty ($q)) {

       $users = User::searchWhere( $q , 'surname' )
                      ->searchWhere( $q , 'name' )
                      ->get();

        if ( count ($users) ) {

            $s2_opts = [];

            $users->each( function( $user ) {
                if( $user->inGroup( UserGroupModel::getAdminGroup() )) {
                    // User is in Group... Push to Array
                }
            });

             return json_encode($s2_opts);

        } else {
            // No users found...
        }                 
    }

}

Also have a look at the filter method you can return a filtered collection based on some condition

$filteredUsers = $users->filter(function ( $user ) {
    return $user->inGroup( UserGroupModel::getAdminGroup() ) ;
});