Order by associated pages

[neonwired]

I have a category template and each page can be associated with multiple categories using a page field type.

i have this in php : - 

$categories = $pages->find("template=category, limit=6");

I want to sort the results by the amount of pages each category has, is there a way to do this in a selector or is there a better way of doing this?
 

[Sergio]

This may help: 

 

[abdus]

There's a module for exactly these kind of situations.

https://modules.processwire.com/modules/connect-page-fields/

[Robin S]

I like to use the Connect Page Fields module but there is also another approach using an SQL query on the table of the Page field.

An example...

...based on a suggestion from Ryan.

 

[neonwired]

In the end i did it by getting all the categories adding a count property and then sorting and limiting after. Not sure what impact this will have on speed as it's getting all the categories first.

$categories = $pages->find("template=category");
foreach($categories as &$category) {
	$count = count($pages->find("template=tour,type=".$category->name));
	$category->tours = $count;
}
$categories->sort("-tours");
$categories->filter("limit=6");