Default order for models?

[Joe Ruby]

Is there a way to specify the default order for models? So you could
just do this:

items.find(:all).each do ...

rather than:

items.find(:all, :order=>'name').each do ...

Joe

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Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

[Jeffrey Hardy]

Hi Joe --

On 31-Aug-06, at 9:45 PM, Joe Ruby wrote:
> Is there a way to specify the default order for models?

No, there isn't.

For the sake of consistency, I think there should be -- when you're
doing associations you can specify the order there, (as in
has_many :foos, :order => 'created_at desc'), so why not a default
order for the model?

You could always override the find method in your model class,
though. Something like:

def self.find(*args)
if args.first.is_a?(Symbol)
args << {} if args.size < 2
args.last.reverse_merge! :order => "#{self.table_name}.name"
super args.first, args.last
else
super
end
end

That would give you a default order by on 'name', which could be
overridden by specifying the :order option explicitly, as per usual.

HTH

/Jeff

[Chris Hall]

take a look at this article, it may be of some help for you.

http://habtm.com/articles/2006/02/22/nested-with_scope

this article basically explains various ways to utilize with_scope.
one of the methods addresses a very similar situation to yours,
however, it is done at the controller level rather than the model. it
still may be useful to you.

Chris