Grouped Collection Select Alphabetical Order Rails

Question

I finally figured out how to implement Dynamic Select menus using this tutorial.

Everything works, But how does one organize the Cities in t

Answer 1

If using Rails 5.X, you can use default_scope, in which the syntax is slightly different than in @zeantsoi answer.

default_scope { order('cities.name ASC') }

Answer 2

Option 1: In your City model, add a default scope that directs cities to be returned in alphabetical order:

# app/models/city.rb
default_scope :order => 'cities.name ASC'

Collections of City objects will, by default, be returned in alphabetically by name.

Option 2: Define a named scope in your State model that returns cities in alphabetical order as an association on a State object:

# app/models/state.rb
scope :cities_by_name, -> { cities.order(name: :asc) } # Rails 4

scope :cities_by_name, cities.order("name ASC") # Rails 3

Then, pass your scoped query to your grouped_collection helper:

f.grouped_collection_select :city_id, State.order(:name), :cities_by_name, :name, :id, :name, {:include_blank=> "Select a City"}, {:class=>'dropdown'}

Answer 3

Like others in this thread, I had issues getting this to work with scope. Instead I got this working in Rails 5 by adding another association to the State model:

has_many :cities_by_name, -> { order(:name) }, class_name: 'City'

Answer 4

How about using default_scope with ordering for City model?

Or creating a State scope like that:

scope :ordered_cities, ->{ cities.order(:name) }

and than changing your select to

f.grouped_collection_select :city_id, State.order(:name), :ordered_cities, :name, :id, :name, {:include_blank=> "Select a City"}, {:class=>'dropdown'}

Answer 5

With Rails 4 :

# app/models/city.rb
scope :ordered_name, -> { order(name: :asc) }

# app/models/state.rb
has_many :cities, -> { ordered_name }