Configuring collection without sorting does not have an effect

Help me!
1

Feature(s) impacted

Default sorting

Observed behavior

Setting the sorting of a collection to “no sorting”, still adds an order by in the database query.

Expected behavior

Setting the sorting of a collection to “no sorting”, makes database queries without order by

Context

  • Project name: Back Office
  • Team name: Any team
  • Environment name: Production
  • Agent type & version: Forest liana Rails, v7.4.5, with Postgres database
  • Recent changes made on your end if any: No

It seems that the following method in the Rails agent adds an implicit sorting when I don’t want any.

Sorting in big database tables has negative performance impact and I want to avoid it completely. The Forest configuration in the collection settings gives the wrong impression that leaving the field and order empty:

Screenshot 2022-03-02 at 19.34.59
Screenshot 2022-03-02 at 19.34.591844×133 6.1 KB

would achieve no ordering, but it still orders records.

Please see the logs below that clearly show params without sorting, but the database query still using order by:

Rack -- Started -- {:method=>"GET", :path=>"/forest/Order?timezone=Europe%2FLondon&fields%5BOrder%5D=id%2Ccreated_at%2Cupdated_at%2Cstate&filters=%7B%22field%22%3A%22state%22%2C%22operator%22%3A%22equal%22%2C%22value%22%3A%22placed%22%7D&page%5Bnumber%5D=1&page%5Bsize%5D=10"}
ForestLiana::UserSpace::OrderController -- Processing #index
(0.289ms) ActiveRecord -- Order Load -- {:sql=>"SELECT \"orders\".* FROM \"orders\" WHERE (\"orders\".\"state\" = 'placed') ORDER BY \"orders\".\"created_at\" DESC LIMIT $1 OFFSET $2", :binds=>{:limit=>10, :offset=>0}, :allocations=>168, :cached=>nil}
(3.716ms) ForestLiana::UserSpace::OrderController -- Completed #index -- {:controller=>"ForestLiana::UserSpace::OrderController", :action=>"index", :params=>{"timezone"=>"Europe/London", "fields"=>{"Order"=>"id,created_at,updated_at,state"}, "filters"=>"{\"field\":\"state\",\"operator\":\"equal\",\"value\":\"placed\"}", "page"=>{"number"=>"1", "size"=>"10"}, "collection"=>"Order"}, :format=>"JSON", :method=>"GET", :path=>"/forest/Order", :status=>200, :view_runtime=>0.16, :allocations=>2244, :status_message=>"OK"}
2

Hi @Jimmi and welcome in our community :champagne: !

Not having a sort would mean no possibility to have a pagination which is not what we want. So the sort IS necessary.
In your case, if you don’t want a loss of performance you could order by your primary key or by created_at and adding an index on the created_at field :wink:

3

If Forest Liana will apply sorting, no matter what, then why does the Forest UI allows me to set it to empty, without any warning? That seems confusing to me.

Additionally, I have tested with Postgres and it does not require an order by for the pagination to work. The returned rows might not be stable in the long term, but I think that should be left to the discretion of the Forest editor.

4

Hey @Jimmi,

Actually you are correct it’s not the case on other agent (forest-express-sequelize for instance). Let me report the issue.

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