I have been Working on search functionality in Laravel first of all this is my ajax request that I am sending to my controller with search input

$.ajax({
                            url: '{{ route("invoices.search") }}',
                            type: 'GET',
                            data: {
                                search: searchValue
                            },
                            success: function (response) {
                                let tableBody = '';
                                $.each(response, function (index, estimate) {
                                    let fullLink = encodeURI(estimate.invoice_link);
                                    let truncatedLink = estimate.invoice_link.length > 20 ? estimate.invoice_link.substring(0, 20) + '...' : estimate.invoice_link;
                                    let invoice =estimate;
                                    tableBody += `
                                        <tr>
                                            <td class="text-nowrap">${estimate.id}</td>
                                            <td class="text-nowrap">${estimate.customer ? estimate.customer.contact_name : ''}</td>
                                            <td class="text-nowrap">${estimate.invoice_number}</td>
                                            <td class="text-nowrap">${estimate.reference_number}</td>
                                            <td class="text-nowrap">${estimate.gst_no}</td>
                                            <td class="text-nowrap">${estimate.due_date}</td>
                                            <td class="text-nowrap">${new Date(estimate.created_at).toLocaleDateString('en-US', {day: '2-digit', month: 'short', year: 'numeric', hour: '2-digit', minute: '2-digit', hour12: true})}</td>
                                            <td class="text-nowrap">${estimate.invoice_status}</td>
                                            <td class="text-nowrap">${estimate.user.name}</td>
                                            <td class="text-nowrap">
                                                <a href="${fullLink}" target="_blank">${truncatedLink}</a>
                                            </td>
                                            <td class="text-nowrap">
                                                ${estimate.actions_html}
                                            </td>
                                        </tr>`;
                                });
                                $('#estimate-Table > tbody').html(tableBody);
                                // Reinitialize dropdowns or manually trigger them if necessary
                                $('[data-kt-menu-trigger="click"]').on('click', function() {
                                    var $this = $(this);
                                    var $menu = $this.next('.menu-sub-dropdown');

                                    if ($menu.length) {
                                        $menu.toggleClass('show');
                                    }
                                });
                            }
                        });

Next This is My controller Logic

 public function search(Request $request)
    {
        $role=auth()->user()->roles[0]->name;
        $user_id = auth()->user()->id;
        $query = Invoice::query();

        $query->with([
            'invoicePaymentGateways',
            'invoiceLineItems',
            'invoiceCustomFields',
            'customer',
            'user'
        ]);


        if ($role == 'sales-person') {
            $query->where('created_by', $user_id);
        }


        if ($request->has('search') && $request->search != '') {
            $search = $request->search;

            $query->where(function ($q) use ($search) {
                $q->where('invoice_number', 'ilike', "%{$search}%") // ilike for case-insensitive LIKE in PostgreSQL
                ->orWhere('gst_no', 'ilike', "%{$search}%")
                ->orWhere('invoice_status', 'ilike', "%{$search}%")
                ->orWhere('reference_number', 'ilike', "%{$search}%")
                ->orWhereHas('customer', function ($q) use ($search) {
                    $q->where('contact_name', 'ilike', "%{$search}%");
                })
                ->orWhereHas('user', function ($q) use ($search) {
                    $q->where('name', 'ilike', "%{$search}%");
                });
            });
        }

        $estimate_data = $query->get();

        $estimate_data->transform(function ($estimate) {
            $estimate->actions_html  = view('pages.apps.invoice-management.invoices.columns._actions', [
                'invoice' => $estimate,
                'invoice_status' => $estimate->invoice_status
            ])->render();
    
            return $estimate;
        });

        return response()->json($estimate_data);
    }    

here in this search I am using two inverse relations there were defined in my model they are :

   public function customer()
    {
        return $this->belongsTo(Client::class,'customer_id','contact_id');
    }




    public function user()
    {
        return $this->belongsTo(User::class,'created_by');
    }

although my search functionality works completely fine when the data-type of my contact_id field in “bigint” but due to some reasons I have the data-type of that field as “varchar(191)” where as the customer_id field of my invoice-table is “bigint” ,SO it is obvious that I am getting a match type error

So is there anything I can do so that I can perform the search operations with those different data-types

I am using PostgreSQL if that matters

I have tried to use explicit type-casting but may be I was doing it wrong or something else but that won’t work in my case, All I am looking for now is a way I can perform my search operation without changing the data-type in the database and in such a way that it won’t be affecting my others functionalities