Remove order from ActiveRecord scope

Question

I'm using rails ransack ( https://github.com/ernie/ransack ) to allow the users to filter and sort some records. I get the filtered and sorted records using traditional methods.

 @invoices = Invoice.search(params[:q]).result

Now I would like to get some summary information so I have

 @invoices = Invoice.search(params[:q]).result
 @summary = @invoices.select("sum(balance) as balance_total").first

Except when the user specifies a field to sort. I get the SQL error:

 Column "project_name" is invalid in the ORDER BY clause because 
 it is not contained in either an aggregate function or the GROUP BY clause

Can I remove the sort from the scope? How?

Thanks

hmmm now ransack isn't liking the select on the result set, not sure it worked without the sort issue anymore. — jrhicks, Feb 28 '12 at 23:57

score 195 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 09 '21 at 19:59

195

You can call the reorder method with an empty string. E.g.:

Article.order('headline asc').to_sql
#=> "SELECT `articles`.* FROM `articles`  ORDER BY headline asc"

Article.order('headline asc').reorder('').to_sql
#=> "SELECT `articles`.* FROM `articles`"

edited Jun 09 '21 at 19:59

Joshua Pinter

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answered Feb 28 '12 at 23:34

Mori

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Note: If it feels better to you, can also call `.reorder(nil)`. – pdobb Nov 13 '16 at 18:22
27

Another option is to use `unscope(:order)` – Rene Jun 13 '17 at 16:48
12

And yet another option is to use `.except(:order)`. – justisb Sep 26 '19 at 05:59
For the `except(:order)` option official documentation can be found at https://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/SpawnMethods.html#method-i-except – Jignesh Gohel Oct 01 '20 at 10:38
I feel uneasy about `reorder('')` and `reorder(nil)` feels so good. Is there a psychological name for this? – Kazim Zaidi Nov 17 '20 at 05:32

score -2 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 25 '12 at 19:01

-2

You can also use the unscoped class method in Rails 3:

class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
  default_scope :published => true
end

posts = Post.all #=> SELECT * FROM posts WHERE published = true

posts = Post.unscoped do
  Post.all #=> SELECT * FROM posts
end

In Rails 2 it was called with_exclusive_scope.

See https://github.com/rails/rails/commit/bd1666ad1de88598ed6f04ceffb8488a77be4385

answered Mar 25 '12 at 19:01

Chris Bloom

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A word of warning to people using `unscoped`: It does more than just reset the order! If you are using it in a chained ActiveRecord query, it will effectively remove the prior constraints from consideration. For example, `Posts.first.comments.unscoped` will return ALL Comment's, not just those associated with the first Post. – Drew Dara-Abrams Sep 12 '13 at 20:34

Remove order from ActiveRecord scope

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