cakephp: Sort pagination by individual data

Question

I am using CakePHP 2.3.7. To show content to the user I have a model called contents. The controller gets data from this model and sends it to the view by using pagination. So far, everything works fine. Now I want to show the content in a very specific order. For all I know I cannot use the "order"-parameter in paginate() because the order is:

individual for each user (and therefore not a field in the database)
changing frequently based on a complex calculation created on the fly
currently stored in a session array

I have an array containing all relevant item-IDs and a value that defines the position in the order. What I need is a way to teach the pagination to use the order I have defined in the array instead of any sortation from the database. The array I have looks like the one below, where the first number is the position in the order and the second is the ID of the item.

Is there a way to tell the pagination to use this specific item order?

array(
        (int) 0 => '308',
        (int) 1 => '311',
        (int) 2 => '313',
        (int) 3 => '317',
        (int) 4 => '325',
        (int) 5 => '326',
    )

floriank floriank · Accepted Answer · 2013-08-11T11:37:30

Well, don't store the order in a session or an array but store it in the database on a per user base? After it is (re)calculated update the order information and you can use the DB's order by functionality. So either put a "position" field directly into your table or if its associated with mutliple users put it in the join table and order by this field.

This behaviour will deal with items that needs to be a list.

cakephp: Sort pagination by individual data

1 Answers