Performing dynamic sorts on EF4 data
- by Jaxidian
I'm attempting to perform dynamic sorting of data that I'm putting into grids into our MVC UI. Since MVC is abstracted from everything else via WCF, I've created a couple utility classes and extensions to help with this. The two most important things (slightly simplified) are as follows:
public static IQueryable<T> ApplySortOptions<T, TModel, TProperty>(this IQueryable<T> collection, IEnumerable<ISortOption<TModel, TProperty>> sortOptions) where TModel : class
{
var sortedSortOptions = (from o in sortOptions
orderby o.Priority ascending
select o).ToList();
var results = collection;
foreach (var option in sortedSortOptions)
{
var currentOption = option;
var propertyName = currentOption.Property.MemberWithoutInstance();
var isAscending = currentOption.IsAscending;
if (isAscending)
{
results = from r in results
orderby propertyName ascending
select r;
}
else
{
results = from r in results
orderby propertyName descending
select r;
}
}
return results;
}
public interface ISortOption<TModel, TProperty> where TModel : class
{
Expression<Func<TModel, TProperty>> Property { get; set; }
bool IsAscending { get; set; }
int Priority { get; set; }
}
I've not given you the implementation for MemberWithoutInstance() but just trust me in that it returns the name of the property as a string. :-)
Following is an example of how I would consume this (using a non-interesting, basic implementation of ISortOption<TModel, TProperty>):
var query = from b in CurrentContext.Businesses
select b;
var sortOptions = new List<ISortOption<Business, object>>
{
new SortOption<Business, object>
{
Property = (x => x.Name),
IsAscending = true,
Priority = 0
}
};
var results = query.ApplySortOptions(sortOptions);
As I discovered with this question, the problem is specific to my orderby propertyName ascending and orderby propertyName descending lines (everything else works great as far as I can tell). How can I do this in a dynamic/generic way that works properly?
