Sorting has_many association

Rails
1

i’ve got a specific problem here and I’m not sure how to handle it.

what i need to do is sort a has_many association in a very specific way.

class Foo < AR::Base
has_many :things
end

class Thing < AR::Base
belongs_to :foo
end

class Order < Thing
end

class BInCheck < Thing
end

class Problem < Thing
end

class Special < Thing
end

class CycleCount < Thing
end

class Notification < AR::Base

PRIORITIES = [:order, :bin_check, :problem, :special, :cycle_count]
end

now, what i need to do when when a foo goes into an ‘available’ state,
i need to create a notification for whatever needs foo next, based on
the notification priorities. the problem is the sorting. what i want
to do is sort the things for foo according to the
Notification::PRIORITIES array. so that all i have to do is pass the
first element in to generate the notification. note, that date also
plays a part in that if there are 2+ of any type, they are sorted by
date (:created_on attribute).

one thing i thought of using was an association extension on Foo

has_many :things do
def for_notification
…
end
end

bug again, i’m still blocked on the sorting.

any ideas?

2

Chris H. wrote:

end
class Special < Thing
now, what i need to do when when a foo goes into an ‘available’ state,
has_many :things do
def for_notification
…
end
end

bug again, i’m still blocked on the sorting.

any ideas?

How do you decide which priority to pick? I’m assuming that :order is
not the
one that’s always called every time.

–
Michael W.

3

yes, that’s the priority. per the requirements.

when a ‘foo’ becomes available a notification should be generated
based on the following priorities, highest to lowest

order, bin check, problem, special, cycle count

if there are multiple of a particular type, the oldest gets the
notification.

so basically what this means if i have say, 3 order, 1 bin check and 1
special associated with foo

the oldest order gets the notification

if i have 1 bin check and 2 cycle count, the bin check gets the
notification.

hence why i’d like to sort based on the priorities (and created_on
within each) i listed and then just take the first one and generate a
priority

something like

Notification.generate_for foo.things.sorted_for_notifications.first

4

Chris H. wrote:

special associated with foo

Notification.generate_for foo.things.sorted_for_notifications.first

What’s the column that’s storing the priority in Thing? If you are
storing the
priority as a string in Thing the simple thing to is to prefix something
in
the front of the priorities that allows you to sort them easily like:

a_order, b_bin_check, etc.

or

1_order, 2_bin_check, etc.

then you can just do :order => “priority, created_at”.

If you are storing it as an integer then you just need to make sure that
they
are ordered properly. E.g. order = 1, bin_check = 2, etc.

–
Michael W.