What is sorting

Ordering results of a query dynamically is a common case. With Hot Chocolate sorting, you can expose a sorting argument that abstracts the complexity of ordering logic. With little configuration, your GraphQL API has sorting capabilities, which translates to native database queries. The default sort implementation translates sorting statements to expression trees that are applied to IQueryable. Hot Chocolate by default will inspect your .NET model and infer the possible sorting operations from it. Sorting uses IQueryable (IEnumerable) by default, but you can also easily customize them to use other interfaces.

The following type would yield the following sorting operation

    public class User
    {
        public string Name { get; set; }

        public Address Address { get; set; }
    }

    public class Address
    {
        public string Street { get; set; }
    }

type Query {
  users(order: [UserSortInput]): [User]
}

type User {
  name: String!
  address: Address!
}

input AddressSortInput {
  street: SortEnumType
}

input UserSortInput {
  name: SortEnumType
  address: AddressSortInput
}

enum SortEnumType {
  ASC
  DESC
}

Getting started

Sorting is part of the HotChocolate.Data package.

dotnet add package HotChocolate.Data

To use sorting you need to register it on the schema:

services.AddGraphQLServer()
  // Your schema configuration
  .AddSorting();

Hot Chocolate will infer the sorting types directly from your .Net Model and then use a Middleware to apply the order to IQueryable<T> or IEnumerable<T> on execution.

public class Query
{
    [UseSorting]
    public IQueryable<User> GetUsers([Service] IUserRepository repository)
        => repository.GetUsers();
}

⚠️ Note: If you use more than one middleware, keep in mind that ORDER MATTERS. The correct order is UsePaging > UseProjections > UseFiltering > UseSorting

The type can be sorted using the order field in the query:

query {
  users(order: [{ name: ASC }]) {
    name
    address {
      street
    }
  }
}

Properties of nested objects can be sorted as well:

query {
  users(order: [{ address: { street: ASC } }]) {
    name
    address {
      street
    }
  }
}

Note that it is possible to sort on a field and then by another field:

query {
  users(order: [{ name: ASC }, { address: { street: DESC } }]) {
    name
    address {
      street
    }
  }
}

Customization

Under the hood, sorting is based on top of normal Hot Chocolate input types. You can easily customize them with a very familiar fluent interface. The sorting input types follow the same descriptor scheme as you are used to from the normal input types. Just extend the base class SortInputType<T> and override the descriptor method.

ISortInputTypeDescriptor<T> supports most of the methods of IInputTypeDescriptor<T>. By default, operations are generated for all fields of the type. Members that are collections are skipped because you cannot order based on lists. If you do want to specify the sorting types by yourself, you can change this behavior with BindFields, BindFieldsExplicitly, or BindFieldsImplicitly. When fields are bound implicitly, meaning sorting is added for all valid properties, you may want to hide a few fields. You can do this with Ignore(x => Bar). It is also possible to customize the GraphQL field of the operation further. You can change the name or add a description or directive.

public class UserSortType : SortInputType<User>
{
    protected override void Configure(ISortInputTypeDescriptor<User> descriptor)
    {
        descriptor.BindFieldsExplicitly();
        descriptor.Field(f => f.Name).Name("custom_name");
    }
}

If you want to change the sorting operations on a field, you need to declare your own operation enum type.

public class UserSortType : SortInputType<User>
{
    protected override void Configure(ISortInputTypeDescriptor<User> descriptor)
    {
        descriptor.BindFieldsExplicitly();
        descriptor.Field(f => f.Name).Type<AscOnlySortEnumType>();
    }
}

public class AscOnlySortEnumType : DefaultSortEnumType
{
    protected override void Configure(ISortEnumTypeDescriptor descriptor)
    {
        descriptor.Operation(DefaultSortOperations.Ascending);
    }
}

type Query {
  users(order: [UserSortInput]): [User]
}

type User {
  name: String!
  address: Address!
}

input UserSortInput {
  name: AscOnlySortEnumType
}

enum AscOnlySortEnumType {
  ASC
}

To apply this sorting type, we just have to provide it to the UseSorting extension method as the generic type argument.

public class Query
{
    [UseSorting(typeof(UserSortType))]
    public IQueryable<User> GetUsers([Service] IUserRepository repository)
        => repository.GetUsers();
}

Sorting Conventions

If you want to change the behavior of sorting globally, you want to create a convention for sorting. The sorting convention comes with a fluent interface that is close to a type descriptor.

Get Started

To use a sort convention, you have to extend SortConvention and override the Configure method. Alternatively, you can directly configure the convention over the constructor argument. You then have to register your custom convention on the schema builder with AddConvention. By default, a new convention is empty. To add the default behavior, you have to add AddDefaults.

public class CustomConvention : SortConvention
{
    protected override void Configure(ISortConventionDescriptor descriptor)
    {
        descriptor.AddDefaults();
    }
}

services.AddGraphQLServer()
    .AddConvention<ISortConvention, CustomConvention>();
// or
services.AddGraphQLServer()
    .AddConvention<ISortConvention>(new Convention(x =>
        x.AddDefaults()))

Often you just want to extend the default behavior of sorting. If this is the case, you can also use SortConventionExtension

public class CustomConventionExtension : SortConventionExtension
{
    protected override void Configure(ISortConventionDescriptor descriptor)
    {
        // config
    }
}

services.AddGraphQLServer()
    .AddConvention<ISortConvention, CustomConventionExtension>();
// or
services.AddGraphQLServer()
    .AddConvention<ISortConvention>(new SortConventionExtension(x =>
    {
        // config
    }))

Argument Name

With the convention descriptor, you can easily change the argument name of the SortInputType.

Configuration

descriptor.ArgumentName("example_argument_name");

Result

type Query {
  users(example_argument_name: [UserSortInput]): [User]
}

Binding of SortTypes

SortInputType's cannot just be registered on the schema. You have to bind them to the runtime type on the convention.

SortInputType bindings

By default, only the string type is bound explicitly. If you want to configure sorting globally, you are free to bind additional types.

Configuration

public class CustomSortInputType : SortInputType<User>
{
    protected override void Configure(ISortInputTypeDescriptor<User> descriptor)
    {
        descriptor.Name("CustomSortInputType");
    }
}

public class CustomConvention : SortConvention
{
    protected override void Configure(ISortConventionDescriptor descriptor)
    {
        descriptor.AddDefaults().BindRuntimeType<User, CustomSortInputType>();
    }
}

Result

type Query {
  users(order: [CustomSortInputType!]): [User]
}

type User {
  name: String!
}

input CustomSortInputType {
  name: SortEnumType
}

enum SortEnumType {
  ASC
  DESC
}

Default bindings

For fields all fields where no explicit binding is found, a default is applied. This default is DefaultSortEnumType. This can be configured with the method DefaultBinding.

Configuration

public class CustomConvention : SortConvention
{
    protected override void Configure(ISortConventionDescriptor descriptor)
    {
        descriptor.AddDefaults().DefaultBinding<AscOnlySortEnumType>();
    }
}

Result

type Query {
  users(order: [UserSortInput]): [User]
}

type User {
  logonCount: Int!
}

input UserSortInput {
  logonCount: AscOnlySortEnumType
}

enum AscOnlySortEnumType {
  ASC
}

Extend Types

SortEnumType

When you build extensions for sorting, you may want to modify or extend the DefaultSortEnumType.

descriptor.ConfigureEnum<DefaultSortEnumType>(
    x => x.Operation(CustomOperations.NULL_FIRST).Name("NULL_FIRST));

enum SortEnumType {
  ASC
  DESC
  NULL_FIRST
}

SortType

In case you want to change a specific sort type, you can do this too. You can use Configure<TSortType>() to alter the configuration of a type.

descriptor.Configure<CustomSortInputType>(
    x => x.Description("This is my custom description"));

"This is my custom description"
input CustomSortInputType {
  name: SortEnumType
}