Search engine like function?

I am building a data warehouse site that contains a lot of customer info. I
need to allow users of my app to have a search page that lets them enter
natural search strings to find and narrow search results.

I wanted each word on the search field to be treated as AND clause in my
search. I also need the search to act like full text where multiple fields
are considered for a match. I also have a special case whereas a numeric
keyword is treated special and only certain fields are searched in that
case.

Examples:

Keyword: dave
Searches: ( `User`.`name` like '%dave%' OR `User`.`email` like '%dave%' )

Keyword: dave thomas
Searches: ( ( `User`.`name` like '%dave%' OR `User`.`email` like '%dave%' )
AND ( `name` like '% thomas%' OR `email` like '% thomas%' ) )

Keyword: 341
Searches: ( `User`.`id` = '341' )

I have written a model function that divides the keywords into an array and
creates an array of conditions that I pass to the find() command. This works
great.

However this feels like a very common pattern, and I wonder if I just
reinvented the wheel? Sooner or later I will be asked to add special keyword
handlers such as:

dave OR thomas
dave AND thomas
"dave thomas"
"dave thomas" OR "david thomas"

Is there already a cake pattern or helper that exists that I should be
using? If not I may just create one for the good of the community.
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