Laravel collection sortBy not taking effect

Question

I'm trying to combine and sort the results from several db queries.

$events = collect();

$downedEvents = EventDowned::where('mission', $missionId)
   ->orderBy('mission_time', 'asc')
   ->get();

$events->push($downedEvents);

$getInOutEvents = EventGetInOut::where('mission', $missionId)
   ->orderBy('mission_time', 'asc')
   ->get();

$events->push($getInOutEvents);

$missileEvents = EventMissile::where('mission', $missionId)
   ->orderBy('mission_time', 'asc')
   ->get();

$events->push($missileEvents);

$flattenedEvents = $events->flatten();
$sortedEvents = $flattenedEvents->sortBy('mission_time');

return $sortedEvents->all();

The result looks like this:

As you can see it has correctly combined the results, however they remain in their original query order, not sorted.

I've also tried

$sortedEvents = $flattenedEvents->sortBy(function($event) {
    return (int) $event->mission_time;
});

Interglacial

That would work if the items are associative arrays, provide your callback function to sortBy and try. laravel.com/docs/5.4/collections#method-sortby – Candace

I've tried $sortedEvents = $flattenedEvents->sortBy(function($event) { return $event->mission_time; }); but it has the same result – Interglacial

var_dump $event->mission_time and check the type – Candace

I thought that might be the case so I did try return (int) $event->mission_time with the same result – Interglacial

It seems right for me.. the only thing I can say is to debug it.. set breakpoints and dive deep into the sortBy code. Don't worry it's a function of 10 lines. not a big deal – Candace

@ShadyAtef found the issue (see answer) sorry for wasting your time :( – Interglacial

Answer 1

A huge fail on my part, my pretty print JSON chrome extension was messing with the display order, viewing the raw response showed they were in fact sorted correctly... ::facepalm::

Interglacial

I will go back calmly to my AI study., But Good luck that you found it. – Candace

Lmao this saved me... Why would it do that!? – Siracusa

@Interglacial Really, that was the problem ?, Why do I have exactly the same problem and I have been trying to make the order work for hours and I have not managed any idea or recommendation? please – Hervey

I experienced the same issue with Postman... The pretty response was not ordered and the Raw response was ordered like I wanted ! Thanks – Seedcase

Was pulling my hair out on this! For anyone reading, "JSON Formatter" for Chrome does this. Thank you! – Muscatel

Answer 2

To extend on @Titan's answer, i guess the extensions/ postman maintain the array indexing order. Not really sure.

To get rid of that

return $collection->values();

Here is an example

$arr = collect([
  0 => [
      'name' => 'foo',
      'weight' => 70
  ],
  1 => [
      'name' => 'bar',
      'weight' => 80
  ]
 ]);

return $arr->sortByDesc('weight');

the extension will still keep the index order

return $arr->sortByDesc('weight')->values();

This will get the desired order.

Trews

this should be marked as correct answer! you saved my day dude! – Silver

That is it! 10th time that I've been here. Now its memorized, I promise! – Natterjack

This worked. Thank you! I came acoss a weird issue: If I save the sorted values again in the same field of the collection, the order was lost again. When I temporarely saved the sorted values in a variable, and unset the field before saving the variable in it again, it worked. – Pearse