Sorting a table in asp.net MVC

Question

I was wondering how people were going about sorting a table in asp.net mvc? I\'ve heard of javascript solutions that work pretty well with non-paged tables, such as jquery\'s ta

Answer 1

Try the following extension methods (from top of head):

static class OrderByExtender
{
    public static IOrderedEnumerable OrderBy(this IEnumerable collection, string key, string direction)
    {
        LambdaExpression sortLambda = BuildLambda(key);

        if(direction.ToUpper() == "ASC")
            return collection.OrderBy((Func)sortLambda.Compile());
        else
            return collection.OrderByDescending((Func)sortLambda.Compile());
    }

    public static IOrderedEnumerable ThenBy(this IOrderedEnumerable collection, string key, string direction)
    {
        LambdaExpression sortLambda = BuildLambda(key);

        if (direction.ToUpper() == "ASC")
            return collection.ThenBy((Func)sortLambda.Compile());
        else
            return collection.ThenByDescending((Func)sortLambda.Compile());
    }

    private static LambdaExpression BuildLambda(string key)
    {
        ParameterExpression TParameterExpression = Expression.Parameter(typeof(T), "p");
        LambdaExpression sortLambda = Expression.Lambda(Expression.Convert(Expression.Property(TParameterExpression, key), typeof(object)), TParameterExpression);
        return sortLambda;
    }
}

Usage:

var products = Session["Model"] as IEnumerable() ?? _service.GetAll();

return products.OrderBy("Name", "ASC").ThenBy("Price", "DESC");

Assuming you are only using 1 orderby condition at a time you can use:

var products = Session["Model"] as IEnumerable();

var sortDirection = Session["Direction"] as string ?? "DESC";
Session["Direction"] = sortDirection == "DESC" ? "ASC" : "DESC";
sortDirection = Session["Direction"] as string;

return products.OrderBy(parameter, sortDirection);