Help with sorting results

Rails
1

Greetings,

I’m programming a section of my application that will store and list
stories. These stories should be sorted by three factors: genre,
order_by (such as time posted), and sort (ascending or descending). I
want to give my users the ability to easily sort through the list of
stories.

To achieve this, I’ve setup a named route:

map.sort_by ‘stories/sort_by/:genre/:order_by/:sort’, :controller =>
“stories”, :action => “index” (Both :order_by and :sort may be left
nil)

I’m stuck at the point of actually sorting and returning the results
(the controller logic). I’ve done some research, though am still quite
a newbie on rails. >< In your opinion, what would be the best way to
sort the stories based off of what is, and is not supplied to the
controller? For example, if only params(:genre) is supplied, I want
the list of stories to only display the specified genre. However, if
params(:order_by) is also supplied, the list would be of one genre and
listed, ASC or DESC by whatever :order_by is targeting.

Thanks in advance for you help!

~Dustin T.

2

nil)

I’m stuck at the point of actually sorting and returning the results
(the controller logic). I’ve done some research, though am still quite
a newbie on rails. >< In your opinion, what would be the best way to
sort the stories based off of what is, and is not supplied to the
controller? For example, if only params(:genre) is supplied, I want
the list of stories to only display the specified genre. However, if
params(:order_by) is also supplied, the list would be of one genre and
listed, ASC or DESC by whatever :order_by is targeting.

I’d do something like this:

if params[:genre]
conditions = [‘genre = ?’, params[:genre]
else
conditions = nil
end

params[:sort] = ‘asc’ unless [‘asc’, ‘desc’].include?
(params[:sort].downcase)

params[:order] = ‘title’ unless [‘title’, ‘created_at’,
‘some_field’].include?(params[:order_by].downcase)

Story.find(:all, :conditions => conditions, :order =>
“#{params[:order]} #{params[:sort]}”)

This way you check all the inputs and force them into something
reasonable if they aren’t what you want.

3

Thanks Philip!

That really helped. The application is running smoothly and everything
is working. :slight_smile:

~Dustin T.