Laravel - paginated model sort link in blade view - php

Question

In laravel 5.2 I have a paginated table of a model.
#CityController
public function index(Request $request){
$cities = City::orderBy('name');
return view('pages.city.index', ["cities" => $cities ->paginate(25)]);
}
This works fine, but when I try to sort the results inside the blade view does not work.
#index.blade.php
<table>
<thead>
<tr class="sui-columnheader">
<th class="sui-headercell" data-field="Id">
Id
</th>
</thead>
<tbody class="list">
#foreach ($cities as $city)
<tr class="sui-row">
<td class="sui-cell id">{!! $city->id !!}</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
When I click the sort button just reloads the page but no sort is applied.
Is because of the "orderBy" clause?
How can I make it work and defaults to order by name?
Am I missing something?

Answer 1

Something like this perhaps. You would want to make sure you limit what can be passed to that orderBy. A URL like "...something?sort=blah" would cause orderBy('blah'), which your table doesn't have, which will cause a DB error.
public function index(Request $request)
{
$cities = City::orderBy($request->input('sort', 'name'))->paginate(25);
return view('pages.city.index', ['cities' => $cities]);
}
{{ $cities->appends(Request::query())->render() }}
Just giving you a functional example, though you will have to adjust based on your own rules.
The appends is just allowing you to continue to paginate based on the current sorting, by passing the sort option via the query string of the pagination links.
Update:
Using your example where there is a default, but imagining there can be more than just 1 other field to sort by:
$sort = trim($request->input('sort'));
// if it is in the acceptable array use it, otherwise default to 'name'
$sort = in_array($sort, ['id', ...]) ? $sort : 'name';
$cities = City::orderBy($sort)->paginate(25);
<table>
<tr>
<th>ID</th>
<th>NAME</th>
...
</tr>
#foreach ($cities as $city)
<tr>
<td>{{ $city->id }}</td>
<td>{{ $city->name }}</td>
...
</tr>
#endforeach
...
{{ $cities->appends(Request::query())->render() }}
Just an example, you can do this how you would like.