entitySelection.orderBy( )

Home

4D v19.8


entitySelection.orderBy ( criteria ) -> Result

Parameter	Type	Description
criteria	Text, Collection	Text: attribute path(s) and sorting instruction(s) for the entity selection Collection: collection of criteria objects
Result	EntitySelection	New entity selection in the specified order

Description

The entitySelection.orderBy( ) method returns a new ordered entity selection containing all entities of the entity selection in the order specified by criteria.

Notes:

This method does not modify the original entity selection.
For more information on ordered entity selections, please refer to Ordered vs Unordered entity selections.

You must use the criteria parameter to define how the entities must be sorted. Two syntaxes are supported for this parameter:

criteria is of text type (formula): In this case, criteria contains a formula made of 1 to x attribute paths and (optionally) sort orders, separated by commas. The formula syntax is:
"attributePath1 {desc or asc}, attributePath2 {desc or asc},..."

The order in which the attributes are passed determines the sorting priority of the entities. By default, attributes are sorted in ascending order. You can set the sort order of a property in the criteria string, separated from the property path by a single space: pass "asc" to sort in ascending order or "desc" in descending order.

criteria is of collection type: in this case, each element of the collection contains an object structured in the following way:
{
"propertyPath": string,
"descending": boolean
}
By default, attributes are sorted in ascending order ("descending" is false).
You can add as many objects in the criteria collection as necessary.

Note: Null values are evaluated as less than other values.

Example

  // order by formula

 $sortedEntitySelection:=$entitySelection.orderBy("firstName asc, salary desc")

 $sortedEntitySelection:=$entitySelection.orderBy("firstName")

 

  // order by collection with or without sort orders

 $orderColl:=New collection

 $orderColl.push(New object("propertyPath";"firstName";"descending";False))

 $orderColl.push(New object("propertyPath";"salary";"descending";True))

 $sortedEntitySelection:=$entitySelection.orderBy($orderColl)

 

 $orderColl:=New collection

 $orderColl.push(New object("propertyPath";"manager.lastName"))

 $orderColl.push(New object("propertyPath";"salary"))

 $sortedEntitySelection:=$entitySelection.orderBy($orderColl)