Question

I am building a list that will be sorted by the alphabet and am looking for a solution to grab the database result and sort it alphabetically.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

Hmm, if you have a list that isn’t too massive you might just do it naively like:

(This assumes you have a model Company which has a name attribute)

@grouped = {}
Company.all.each do |company|
  letter = company.name.slice(0,1).upcase
  @grouped[letter] ||= []
  @grouped[letter] << company
end

And now you can, in your view, do something such as:

<ul>
  <% @grouped.keys.sort.each do |letter| -%>
    <li>
      <h2><%= letter %></h2>
      <ul>
        <% @grouped[letter].each do |company| -%>
          <li><%= company.name %></li>
        <% end -%>
      </ul>
    </li>
  <% end -%>
</ul>

Update: If you want to extend the logic on what the ‘letter’ is, you would probably move the logic into the model, eg:

class Company
  # ... code

  def initial
    # find a number at the start of the string if it exists
    m = self.name.match(/^\d+/)
    return m[0] if m
    # or return the first letter upcased otherwise
    return self.name.slice( 0, 1 ).upcase
  end
end