Sorting inside the Controller or the view?

[TSH]

Hello,

as mentioned in this thread (http://forum.springframework.org/showthread.php?t=42595) I have a itemController to create a bean called itemList.

This list shall include dvds, books, newspaper-articels or several other items/beans.

I want to have several views on this list, e.g. an alphabetically sorted view or a chronologically sorted view. How do I sort those beans?

1) Sorting inside the controllers:
I could change the itemController to itemControllerAlphabetically and itemControllerChronologically and implement different ways to create the bean list.

2) Sorting inside the view
I could keep my itemController and use jsp to sort the beans.

Which one would you prefer?

[tanmay]

1) Sorting inside the controllers:
I could change the itemController to itemControllerAlphabetically and itemControllerChronologically and implement different ways to create the bean list.


I would not suggest to have different controller just for sorting. I will suggest you send the sorting order(ASC/DESC) to your itemController and get sort result from database on that basis.


2) Sorting inside the view
I could keep my itemController and use jsp to sort the beans.

I will suggest get the sorted data from database, that will be faster.

[Colin Yates]

Hello,

as mentioned in this thread (http://forum.springframework.org/showthread.php?t=42595) I have a itemController to create a bean called itemList.

This list shall include dvds, books, newspaper-articels or several other items/beans.

I want to have several views on this list, e.g. an alphabetically sorted view or a chronologically sorted view. How do I sort those beans?

1) Sorting inside the controllers:
I could change the itemController to itemControllerAlphabetically and itemControllerChronologically and implement different ways to create the bean list.

2) Sorting inside the view
I could keep my itemController and use jsp to sort the beans.

Which one would you prefer?
I am not sure there is a choice actually....it has to come from the DB simply because of paging. If you are not using paging, then either DB or Controller (but I would still suggest DB ;)) but if you are paging, there is no other option.

[TSH]

What about a abstract bean called "BeanSorter" with its children "BeanSorterAlphabetic" and "BeanSorterChronological". Then each itemController can have its appropriate sorter. ??

[JEisen]

Like other people have said, I'd do this through the DB. Don't make more objects in Java for what Java doesn't even need to see.

Doing it through a single controller also lets you handle it in Ajax later, if you wish, resorting tables on the fly. ;)

[TSH]

Unfortunately I don't get the items entirely from a DB. I have to collect the data (label, date, description,...) from different sources. I can't sort them before my beanList is created.

[nllarson]

Use displayTag in your jsp. Sorting and paging work out of the box. You just drop your list in, it will do the rest.

http://displaytag.sourceforge.net/11/

[TSH]

That's a great library! Thank you. I'm using it right now.

[blueskies]

I think you should have a separate function or bean for sorting , not separate controllers. Your controller could take some arguments which indicate what/how to sort.