I'm fairly new to drupal and still learning FAPI so perhaps I'm misunderstanding how this *should* work.

I have a query I am running where I need the result set ordered in a certain way (alphabetical by last name).

When I run the query I get the correct result - but when I display it in the tableselect element - the result set is mis-ordered.

I spent several hours trying to figure out what was going on. Finally I went into the code and found this:

  // Sort the options by their #weight if they have a #weight.
    uasort($element['#options'], 'element_sort');

the problem is that there is no check for the fact that the weight property might not be there.

When the '#weight' property is absent from all the options this uasort totally messes up queries that have an 'ORDER BY' clause in them.

I was able to work-around the issue by adding in the '#weight' property to the options array elements - but this is an undocumented and unexpected result.

If one wants a table ordered in a certain way WITHOUT giving the end-user the ability to select a sort order - one *should* be able to use an 'ORDER BY' clause in their sql query and have the table select element preserve the query result order.

either a check for the '#weight' property should actually be performed around the above listed code (as the code comment suggests) - or the documentation and README file should document that the #weight property is required to preserve query result order.

CommentFileSizeAuthor
#2 query-misordered-when-weight-property-absent.patch966 bytesletapjar

Comments

letapjar’s picture

letapjar commented

Here is a potential solution to this issue - a check of the '#weight' property is done on all the '#options' elements - if even one of them has a '#weight' property then the uasort is performed - but if none of them have the weight - the uasort is ignored and the ORDER BY of the original query is preserved. 

   // Sort the options by their #weight if they have a #weight.
    $has_weight=FALSE;
    foreach($element['#options'] as $option){
     if  (array_key_exists('#weight',$option)){
      $has_weight=TRUE;
     }
     }
     if ($has_weight){
    uasort($element['#options'], 'element_sort');
     }

while this works - it is computationally expensive - looping through every element and doing an array_key_exists could really slow things down for large result sets.

another potential solution would be to add a parameter/property to the table select element such that if set to FALSE the uasort would be skipped.

i.e.

$element['#sort_by_weights'] =>FALSE;

Then the check above could be just:

    // Sort the options by their #weight if we are supposed to.
   if ($element['#sort_by_weights']){
      uasort($element['#options'], 'element_sort');
     }

This would require a default setting and I'm not sure whether the default should be TRUE or FALSE - my leaning is towards FALSE so that the default behavior is to preserve SQL result orders.

letapjar’s picture

letapjar commented
StatusFileSize
new query-misordered-when-weight-property-absent.patch966 bytes

OK so here is the second proposed solution from the post above in the form of a patch.
Apologies for the multiple posts - still learning about how to create patches etc.

--- elements.module 2009-12-02 06:22:11.000000000 -0500
+++ elements2.module 2010-03-23 14:17:28.000000000 -0400
@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@ function elements_elements() {
'#input' => TRUE,
'#js_select' => TRUE,
'#multiple' => TRUE,
+ '#sort_by_weights'=>FALSE,
'#process' => array('form_process_tableselect'),
'#options' => array(),
'#empty' => '',
@@ -78,9 +79,11 @@ function form_process_tableselect($eleme
$element['#default_value'] = array();
}

- // Sort the options by their #weight if they have a #weight.
- uasort($element['#options'], 'element_sort');
-
+ // Sort the options by their #weight if we are supposed to.
+
+ if ($element['#sort_by_weights']){
+ uasort($element['#options'], 'element_sort');
+ }
// Create a checkbox or radio for each item in #options in such a way that
// the value of the tableselect element behaves as if it had been of type
// checkboxes or radios.

letapjar’s picture

letapjar commented
Status: Active » Needs review

changin status to needs review for the proposed patch

dave reid’s picture

dave reid
he/him
Primary language English
Location Nebraska USA
commented
Status: Needs review » Needs work

element_sort() does have a check if items don't have a #weight value. Is this something that needs to be fixed in core?

dave reid’s picture

dave reid
he/him
Primary language English
Location Nebraska USA
commented
Status: Needs work » Closed (won't fix)

Yeah, this is just something core will have to fix.

If I do this:

$elements = array(
  array(
    '#title' => 'AAA',
    '#weight' => 1,
  ),
  array(
    '#title' => 'BBB',
    '#weight' => 1,
  ),
  array(
    '#title' => 'CCC',
    '#weight' => 1,
  ),
);
uasort($elements, 'element_sort');
var_export($elements);

I get:

Array
(
    [2] => Array
        (
            [#title] => CCC
            [#weight] => 1
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [#title] => BBB
            [#weight] => 1
        )

    [0] => Array
        (
            [#title] => AAA
            [#weight] => 1
        )

)

Which re-ordered the elements even though they had the same weight.

dave reid’s picture

dave reid
he/him
Primary language English
Location Nebraska USA
commented
Status: Closed (won't fix) » Needs review

Actually, the problem is that form_builder() hasn't run yet on the form when we call element_sort(). The form_builder() assigns a default weight for fields to preserve array ordering, like we want. If we perform the element_sort in the theme function, we got the proper ordering.

dave reid’s picture

dave reid
he/him
Primary language English
Location Nebraska USA
commented

HAH. Tablesorts are broken in D7 because of this as well.

dave reid’s picture

dave reid
he/him
Primary language English
Location Nebraska USA
commented

#700380: Regression: Tableselect sorting is altered if '#weight' is not set is the core issue here.

dave reid’s picture

dave reid
he/him
Primary language English
Location Nebraska USA
commented
Status: Needs review » Postponed

This will wait until a D7 fix then to backport.

dave reid’s picture

dave reid
he/him
Primary language English
Location Nebraska USA
commented
Status: Postponed » Fixed

Tested the core patch and backported it. Worked for me with multiple cases. Committed the fix to CVS. Please go review the core patch now!
#700380: Regression: Tableselect sorting is altered if '#weight' is not set
http://drupal.org/cvs?commit=345862

letapjar’s picture

letapjar commented

so we can just eliminate the uasort line? - cool.

just tested on my use case - the patch works as expected.

Thanks for jumping on this - it was really driving me nuts on a list that had to have the right order.

jerome72’s picture

jerome72 commented

Thank you so much for the tip! I was going mad with the problem of order, and removing the line did the trick!

I just commented it:

  // Sort the options by their #weight if they have a #weight.
  //  uasort($element['#options'], 'element_sort');

Status: Fixed » Closed (fixed)

Automatically closed -- issue fixed for 2 weeks with no activity.