Sorting Your API Results

Single-column API sorting, with direction control

 1// Handles /dogs?sort=name and /dogs?sort=-name
 2Route::get('dogs', function (Request $request) {
 3    // Get the sort query parameter (or fall back to default sort "name")
 4    $sortColumn = $request->input('sort', 'name');
 5 
 6    // Set the sort direction based on whether the key starts with -
 7    // using Laravel's Str::startsWith() helper function
 8    $sortDirection = Str::startsWith($sortColumn, '-') ? 'desc' : 'asc';
 9    $sortColumn = ltrim($sortColumn, '-');
10 
11    return Dog::orderBy($sortColumn, $sortDirection)
12        ->paginate(20);
13});

we do the same for multiple columns (e.g., ?sort=name,-weight)

 1// Handles ?sort=name,-weight
 2Route::get('dogs', function (Request $request) {
 3    // Grab the query parameter and turn it into an array exploded by ,
 4    $sorts = explode(',', $request->input('sort', ''));
 5 
 6    // Create a query
 7    $query = Dog::query();
 8 
 9    // Add the sorts one by one
10    foreach ($sorts as $sortColumn) {
11        $sortDirection = Str::startsWith($sortColumn, '-') ? 'desc' : 'asc';
12        $sortColumn = ltrim($sortColumn, '-');
13 
14        $query->orderBy($sortColumn, $sortDirection);
15    }
16 
17    // Return
18    return $query->paginate(20);
19});