Rails - Feb 2005 - a SortHelper (Re: Help: How can I generalize this?)

Hi,

I have solved the problem Bob Sidebotham and Pirmin Kalberer were looking
at a month ago (19 Jan 2005): the sorting of columns by clicking headers. I read
Bob''s post about halfway through the process, and it helped, and I like
my
solution, so I thought I''d share it. (What''s the current best
method of sharing
Rails plugins?)

Anyway, here''s a quick synopsis:

 === View

  <tr>
    <th><%= link_to_sort_by ''First Name'',
''name'' %></th>
    <th><%= link_to_sort_by ''Surname'',
''family.name'' %></th>
    <th><%= link_to_sort_by ''Email'',
''email'' %></th>
  </tr>

 === Controller:

  helper :sort

  def list  # action
    SortHelper.columns = %w[
      name
      family.name
      email
    ]
    SortHelper.default_order = %w[family.name name]
    @people = Person.find_all.sort do |a, b|
      SortHelper.sort(a, b, @params)
    end
  end

And your @people are sorted!

Please help yourself to my code here:
http://www.dave.burt.id.au/ruby/sort_helper.rb

Cheers,
Dave