# Sorting entries by clicking a table heading

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sorting-entries-by-clicking-a-table-heading/166103>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [April 21, 2009, 9:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sorting-entries-by-clicking-a-table-heading/166103 "2009-04-21T21:35:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![shanerosenthal](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/77aa72/32.png) [@shanerosenthal](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/shanerosenthal)\
**Post date:** [April 21, 2009, 9:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sorting-entries-by-clicking-a-table-heading/166103/1 "2009-04-21T21:35:15Z")

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Hey, everybody. I’ve just started learning Rails this week, and am  
trying to reinforce what I’ve learned so far by writing a simple  
listing site. I’ve got all of the basics working, but thought it would  
be nice to add sorting functionality when a user clicks on a column  
heading. I thought I had it all sorted out, but it seems that nothing  
happens when you click the links. Here’s what I’ve got written to make  
it work (note: I’m using Rails 2.2.2 for this example, since the  
PragProg Rails book uses that version).

First, in the view I’ve got the heading links being generated like  
this:  
\<%= link\_to “Address”, {:action =\> “index”, :order\_by =\> “:address1” }  
%\>  
Then in the controller, I’ve got this listing for my index (the logic  
could be shortened up a bit, I know. Just trying to make it clear for  
me)  
def index  
if params[:order\_by]  
@properties = Property.find(:all, :order =\> params[:order\_by])  
else  
@properties = Property.find(:all)  
end

Everything still works after this addition, and clicking on a heading  
link sends me to the index listing, but the order does not change. In  
Terminal, I see this for my DB query:  
Parameters: {“order\_by”=\>“:address1”}  
Property Load (1.0ms) SELECT \* FROM “properties” ORDER BY :address1

Should I be doing this some other way? Trying to search for a solution  
through Google takes me to a bunch of old posts about checking out  
this Wiki article ([http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/SortHelper](http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/SortHelper))  
but there’s nothing there.

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**Author:** ![shanerosenthal](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/77aa72/32.png) [@shanerosenthal](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/shanerosenthal)\
**Post date:** [April 21, 2009, 9:42pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sorting-entries-by-clicking-a-table-heading/166103/2 "2009-04-21T21:42:20Z")

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If you look carefully at the SQL you will see that you are ordering by  
:address1. I am guessing that :address1 is not the column name.

2009/4/21 Shane R. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![shanerosenthal](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/77aa72/32.png) [@shanerosenthal](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/shanerosenthal)\
**Post date:** [April 21, 2009, 9:44pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sorting-entries-by-clicking-a-table-heading/166103/3 "2009-04-21T21:44:40Z")

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Actually, before this post appeared I figured it out. I do have a  
column named address1 (the same link structure failed to work for all  
columns), but I needed to pass the column name as-is instead of as a  
parameter (ie: remove the :). Thanks for the response, though.