Rails sorting associated records

ruby-on-rails

Solution

I believe you could actually specify the default order directly on the association declaration:

class Book < ActiveRecord::Base
    has_many :pages, :order => "page_number asc"
end

class Page < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :book
end

This way, you won't have to specify the `Book#pages` method yourself, and it will still be ordered by `page_number asc` by default.

Problem

Using Rails 3.0.10 & Ruby 1.9.2. I have a Book model which has many Pages. ``` class Book < ActiveRecord::Base has_many :pages # is this right? def pages Page.order('page_number asc').find_all_by_book_id(:id) end end class Page < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :book end ``` When I retrieve the pages of a book, I always want them ordered by their page number. What is the proper way to handle this so that calling book.pages will return all pages in sequence? When editing the book I also show the content of each page which can be edited. If I am using nested attributes would this return the pages in their proper sequence, assuming my previous question is resolved? ``` <%= form_for [@book, @pages] do |f| %> <%= f.fields_for :pages do |page| %> do something <% end %> <% end %> ``` Thanks

Original source