Column sorting for Laravel 5.*

Package for handling column sorting in Laravel 5.1 (and 5.2)

Simply put: this hack in package with blade extension and Font Awesome icon support.

This is my shot at universal and easy to use model sorting in Laravel. The end result allows you to sort an Eloquent model using any column by clicking the column name. Everything is done in PHP, no JS involved.

Setup

Composer

Pull this package in through Composer. (development version dev-master)

{
    "require": {
        "kyslik/column-sortable": "~5.0.0"
    }
}

$ composer update

Add the package to your application service providers in config/app.php

'providers' => [

    App\Providers\RouteServiceProvider::class,

    /*
     * Third Party Service Providers...
     */
    Kyslik\ColumnSortable\ColumnSortableServiceProvider::class,
],

Publish configuration

Publish the package configuration file to your application.

$ php artisan vendor:publish --provider="Kyslik\ColumnSortable\ColumnSortableServiceProvider" --tag="columnsortable"

See configuration file (config/columnsortable.php) yourself and make adjustments as you wish.

Config in few words

Sortablelink blade extension distinguishes between "types" (numeric, amount, alpha) and applies different class for each of them. See following snippet:

'columns' => [
        'numeric'  => [
            'rows' => ['created_at', 'updated_at', 'level', 'id'],
            'class' => 'fa fa-sort-numeric'
        ],
        'amount'   => [
            'rows' => ['price'],
            'class' => 'fa fa-sort-amount'
        ],
        'alpha'    => [
            'rows' => ['name', 'description', 'email', 'slug'],
            'class' => 'fa fa-sort-alpha',
        ],
    ],

Rest of the config file should be crystal clear.

Config update notes

Updating 3.0.* to 3.0.3, use --force option when publishing config file. See this issue, why is config file changed.

Font Awesome support

Install Font-Awesome for visual joy. Search "sort" in cheatsheet and see used icons (12) yourself.

Blade Extension

There is one blade extension for you to use (mind the space between the directive and brackets) fixed in L5.1? (need confirmation)

@sortablelink ('column', 'Title')

Column parameter is order by and Title parameter is displayed inside anchor tags. You can omit Title parameter. In 3.0.3 you can set anchor class in configuration file.

Usage

First of all, include Sortable trait inside your Eloquent model(s). Define $sortable array (see example code below).

Scheme::hasColumn() is run only when $sortable is not defined.

use Kyslik\ColumnSortable\Sortable;

class User extends Model implements AuthenticatableContract, CanResetPasswordContract {

	use Authenticatable, CanResetPassword, Sortable;
	...

	protected $sortable = ['id',
	                       'name',
	                       'email',
	                       'created_at',
	                       'updated_at'];

You're set to go.

Sortable trait adds Sortable scope to the models so you can use it with paginate.

Full Example

####Routes

Route::get('users', ['as' => 'users.index', 'uses' => 'HomeController@index']);

since version 3.0.2 you can use non-named routes

Route::get('users', ['uses' => 'HomeController@index']);

Controller's index() method

public function index(User $user)
{
    $users = $user->sortable()->paginate(10);

	return view('user.index')->withUsers($users);
}

Since version 3.0.4 you can set default sort (when nothing is in (URL) query strings yet).

//generate ->orderBy('name', 'asc')
$users = $user->sortable(['name'])->paginate(10); //default order is asc

//generate ->orderBy('id', 'desc')
$users = $user->sortable(['id' => 'desc'])->paginate(10);

View

In Laravel 5.2 \Input facade is not aliased by default, to do so open config/app.php and add 'Input' => Illuminate\Support\Facades\Input::class, to aliases array.

pagination included

@sortablelink ('name')

@foreach ($users as $user)
    {{ $user->name }}
@endforeach
{!! $users->appends(\Input::except('page'))->render() !!}

One To One Relation sorting

Define HasOne relation

In order to make relation sorting work, you have to define hasOne() relation in your model in question.

/**
* Get the user_detail record associated with the user.
*/
public function detail()    
{
    return $this->hasOne('App\UserDetail');
}

In User model we define hasOne relation to UserDetail model (which holds phone number and address details).

Define $sortable array

Define $sortable array in both models (else, package uses Scheme::hasColumn() which is extra database query).

for User

protected $sortable = ['id', 'name', 'email', 'created_at', 'updated_at'];

for UserDetail

public $sortable = ['address', 'phone_number'];

note that $sortable array in UserDetail is declared as public and not protected because we need to access it inside User model.

Blade and relation sorting

In order to tell package to sort using relation:

@sortablelink ('detail.phone_number', 'phone')

package works with relation "name" that you define in model instead of table name.

Config file

In config file you can set your own separator if . (dot) is not what you want.

'uri_relation_column_separator' => '.'

Exception to catch

#####Package throws custom exception ColumnSortableException with three codes (0, 1, 2).

Code 0 means that explode() fails to explode URI parameter "sort" in to two values. For example: sort=detail..phone_number - produces array with size of 3, which causes package to throw exception with code 0.

Code 1 means that $query->getRelation() method fails, that means when relation name is invalid (does not exists, is not declared in model).

Code 2 means that provided relation through sort argument is not instance of hasOne.

Example how to catch:

try {
    $users = $user->with('detail')->sortable(['detail.phone_number'])->paginate(5);    
    } catch (ColumnSortableException $e) {
    dd($e);
}

I strongly recommend to catch ColumnSortableException because there is a user input in question (GET parameter) and any user can modify it in such way that package throws ColumnSortableException with code 0.