Ordered Active Record (for ActiveRecord 3 or higher)

This gem allows you to have ordered models. It is like the old acts_as_list gem, but very lightweight and with an optimized SQL syntax.

Suppose you want to order a Post model by position. You need to add a position column to the table posts first.

class CreatePost < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def change
    create_table(:posts) do |t|
      ...
      t.integer(:position, null: false)
    end
  end
end

You can make the position column optional: only records with entered positions will be ordered. In rare cases, you can also add extra order columns.

To add ordering to a model, do the following:

class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
  acts_as_ordered(:position)
end

You can also order within the scope of other columns, which is useful for things like associations:

class Detail < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to(:post)
  acts_as_ordered(:position, scope: :post_id)
end

This means the order positions are unique within the scope of post_id.

Examples

Check out the tests (in spec/lib/ordered-active-record.rb) to see more examples.

Suppose you have these records (for all examples this is the starting point):

id | position
---+---------
 1 |        1
 2 |        2
 3 |        3

Insert a new record at position 2

The existing records with position greater than or equal to 2 will have their position increased by 1 and the new record (with id 4) is inserted:

Post.create(position: 2)

id | position
---+---------
 1 |        1
 2 |        3 # moved down
 3 |        4 # moved down
 4 |        2 # inserted

Delete a record at position 2

The existing records with position greater than or equal to 2 will have their position decreased by 1 and the record (with id 2) is deleted:

Post.find(2).destroy

id | position
---+---------
 1 |        1
              # deleted
 3 |        2 # moved up

Move a record down from position 1 to position 2

The existing record with position equal to 2 will have its position decreased by 1 and the record (with id 1) is moved down:

Post.find(1).update_attributes(position: 2)

id | position
---+---------
 1 |        2 # moved down
 2 |        1 # moved up
 3 |        3

Move a record up from position 3 to position 1

The existing records with position greater than or equal to 1 and less than or equal to 2 will have their position increased by 1 and the record (with id 3) is moved up:

Post.find(3).update_attributes(position: 1)

id | position
---+---------
 1 |        2 # moved down
 2 |        3 # moved down
 3 |        1 # moved up

Insert a new record at position 5

This will create a gap in the positions and is bad behavior. It is the task of the developer to avoid this situation. The gem doesn't check the highest existing position (to avoid execution of an extra query).

Post.create(position: 5)

id | position
---+---------
 1 |        1
 2 |        2
 3 |        3
              # gap
 4 |        5 # inserted

Insert a new record with an empty position

This will not affect the other records.

Post.create(position: nil)

id | position
---+---------
 1 |        1
 2 |        2
 3 |        3
 4 |      nil # inserted, but without position

Clear a record's position

Clearing a record's position, is like deleting its position.

Post.find(1).update_attributes(position: nil)

id | position
---+---------
 1 |      nil
 2 |        1 # moved up
 3 |        2 # moved up

Copyright

© 2011-2014 Walter Horstman, IT on Rails