Sortable trait for Laravel's Eloquent models

This package adds sorting functionality to Eloquent models in Laravel 4/5.

You could also find those packages useful:

• Searchable - Allows filtering your models using request parameters
• Withable - Allows eager loading of relations using request parameters
• Pimpable - A meta package that combines Sortable, Searchable and Withable behaviours

Composer install

Add the following line to composer.json file in your project:

"jedrzej/sortable": "0.0.10"

or run the following in the commandline in your project's root folder:

composer require "jedrzej/sortable" "0.0.10"

Setting up sortable models

In order to make an Eloquent model sortable, add the trait to the model and define a list of fields that the model can be sorted by. You can either define a $sortable property or implement a getSortableAttributes method if you want to execute some logic to define list of sortable fields.

use Jedrzej\Sortable\SortableTrait;

class Post extends Eloquent
{
    use SortableTrait;

    // either a property holding a list of sortable fields...
    public $sortable = ['title', 'forum_id', 'created_at'];

    // ...or a method that returns a list of sortable fields
    public function getSortableAttributes()
    {
        return ['title', 'forum_id', 'created_at'];
    }
}

In order to make all fields sortable put an asterisk * in the list of sortable fields:

public $sortable = ['*'];

Sorting models

SortableTrait adds a sorted() scope to the model - you can pass it a query being an array of sorting conditions:

// return all posts sorted by creation date in descending order
Post::sorted('created_at,desc')->get();

// return all users sorted by level in ascending order and then by points indescending orders
User::sorted(['level,asc', 'points,desc'])->get();

or it will use sort parameter from the request as default:

// return all posts sorted by creation date in descending order by appending to URL
?sort=created_at,desc
//and then calling
Post::sorted()->get();

// return all users sorted by level in ascending order and then by points indescending orders by appending to URL
?sort[]=level,asc&sort[]=points,desc
// and then calling
User::sorted()->get();

Overwriting default sorting logic

It is possible to overwrite how sorting parameters are used and applied to the query by implementing a callback in your model named sortFieldName, e.g.:

// return all posts sorted by creation date in descending order
Post::sorted('created_at,desc')->get();

// in model class overwrite the sorting logic so that 'created' field is used instead of 'created_at'
public function sortCreatedAt($query, $direction = 'desc')
{
    return $query->orderBy('created', $direction);
}

Defining default sorting criteria

It is possible to define default sorting criteria that will be used if no sorting criteria are provided in the request or passed to sorted method of your model. Default sorting criteria should be defined in $defaultSortCriteria property, e.g.:

// sort by latest first
protected $defaultSortCriteria = ['created_at,desc'];

Defining default sorting order

By default asc is considered as default sorting order. It is possible to define default sorting order that will be used if no sorting order is provided in the request or passed to sorted method of your model. Default sorting order should be defined in $defaultSortOrder property, e.g.:

// sort in desc order by default if no order is specified in request
protected $defaultSortOrder = 'desc';
// sort in asc order by default if no order is specified in request
protected $defaultSortOrder = 'asc';

Additional configuration

If you are using sort request parameter for other purpose, you can change the name of the parameter that will be interpreted as sorting criteria by setting a $sortParameterName property in your model, e.g.:

 protected $sortParameterName = 'sortBy';