Having trouble sorting prices in a foreach loop

[ZionBludd]

Hi Team, I am having trouble sorting prices in my foreach loop and am wondering is becasuse my price field is a text field and not a number field.

My code is 

<?php

$item_title = $item->title;

$items = $pages->find ("template=Listing, limit=15, sort=title");

foreach ($items as $item??>

<tr>

<td>{item.brand}</td>

<td>{item.model}</td>

<td>

<?php $item_title = $item->title;

$store_price = $pages->find ("template=PriceSpy, sort=price, title=$item_title, limit=1") ;

foreach ($store_price as $price) :?>

 

{price.price}

 

<?php endforeach ;?>

 

 

</td>

<td>

<?php $item_title = $item->title;

$store_price = $pages->find ("template=PriceSpy, sort=-price, title=$item_title, limit=1") ;

foreach ($store_price as $price) :?>

 

 

{price.price}

 

<?php endforeach ;?>

 

 

</td>

</tr>

<?php endforeach ;?>

The offending page is this one: https://www.vapeprices.co.nz/price-guide/. Whereas you can see the Low and High columns are just not making sense

I would really appreciate any help.

[Gideon So]

Hi @Matt Cohen

Deleted

Gideon

[ZionBludd]

2 minutes ago, Gideon So said:

Hi @Matt Cohen

There should be your price field name not price in the selector.

$store_price = $pages->find ("template=PriceSpy, sort=-{your_price_field_name}, title=$item_title, limit=1") ;

Gideon

Hi Gideon, the price field that it's been sorted by is the price field name. 

[Gideon So]

Hi @mattcohen,

I see. But I think the title=$item_title selector may just return 1 page. This is the reason the found page is not sorted.

Please provide more info, for exampe , your template settings, page structure and what you want to achieve.

Gideon

[ZionBludd]

Thanks, Gideon, What I was hoping to do was to perform the same search but limit it at the lowest and highest ends of the spectrum (e.g. Highest price and lowest price).

Does that make sense? 

 

[Gideon So]

It is very hard to tell because I don't know your template settings and page structure.

Gideon

[Robin S]

Hi Matt,

Your code looks like it should work okay so not sure why it isn't. But a few general observations...

Making the connection between pages with the Listing template and pages with the PriceSpy template via only the title is not very robust. What if one of these pages needed to change title? You'd then have to do maintenance on all related pages or else the connection would break. I think it would be better to make the connection via Page Reference fields or possibly a parent-child relationship.

Using a text field for prices is not ideal, and I think you should exclude the currency symbol from the field (I'm assuming the $ sign is in the field because I can't see it being added separately in your code). Better to use a decimal field type and prepend the currency symbol in your template. Then there would be fewer complications with sorting like you're experiencing now. 

It looks like you're using a templating language (is that Smarty?), but there is business logic in the template also which sort of defeats the most common reason for choosing to use a template language separate from PHP. If you're not bothered about enforcing a strict MVC pattern it would be simpler just to stick to plain PHP in your template files.

Edited January 17, 2019 by Robin S
Fixed double-post

[tpr]

Perhaps you need to change this

$pages->find("template=PriceSpy, sort=price, title=$item_title, limit=1") 

to this:

$pages->find("template=PriceSpy, sort=price, title=$item_title")->first()

 

[ZionBludd]

6 hours ago, Robin S said:

Hi Matt,

Your code looks like it should work okay so not sure why it isn't. But a few general observations...

Making the connection between pages with the Listing template and pages with the PriceSpy template via only the title is not very robust. What if one of these pages needed to change title? You'd then have to do maintenance on all related pages or else the connection would break. I think it would be better to make the connection via Page Reference fields or possibly a parent-child relationship.

Using a text field for prices is not ideal, and I think you should exclude the currency symbol from the field (I'm assuming the $ sign is in the field because I can't see it being added separately in your code). Better to use a decimal field type and prepend the currency symbol in your template. Then there would be fewer complications with sorting like you're experiencing now. 

It looks like you're using a templating language (is that Smarty?), but there is business logic in the template also which sort of defeats the most common reason for choosing to use a template language separate from PHP. If you're not bothered about enforcing a strict MVC pattern it would be simpler just to stick to plain PHP in your template files.

Thanks heaps for your suggestions, Robin. I am looking to improve the structure over the weekend & will take these on board

 

5 hours ago, tpr said:

Perhaps you need to change this

$pages->find("template=PriceSpy, sort=price, title=$item_title, limit=1") 

to this:

$pages->find("template=PriceSpy, sort=price, title=$item_title")->first()

 

Thanks tpr, Will look into this! 

[szabesz]

12 hours ago, Robin S said:

Better to use a decimal field type

I recommend @arjen's fork instead: https://github.com/arjenblokzijl/FieldtypeDecimal as @sforsman seems to have abandoned his module.