Package org.geotools.api.filter.sort

Interface SortBy

All Known Implementing Classes:

SortByImpl

public interface SortBy

Defines the sort order, based on a property and ascending/descending.

Having SortBy at the Filter level is an interesting undertaking of Filter 1.1 support. Why you ask? It is at the Same level as Filter, it is not *used* by Filter itself. The services that make use of Filter, such as WFS are starting to make use of SortBy in the same breath.

Where is SortBy used:

• WFS 1.1 Query
• CSW 2.0.1 AbstractQuery

There may be more ...

What this means is that the GeoTools Query will make use of this construct. As for sorting the result of an expression (where an expression matches more then one element), we will splice it in to AttributeExpression as an optional parameter. Note function is defined to return a single value (so we don't need to worry there).

Since:

GeoAPI 2.1

Author:

Jody Garnett (Refractions Research)

See Also:

,

Field Summary

Fields

Modifier and Type	Field	Description
static SortBy	NATURAL_ORDER	Used to indicate "natural" sorting order, usually according FID (hopefully based on Key attribtues).
static SortBy	REVERSE_ORDER	Indicate the reverse order, usually assoicated with "Fid".
static SortBy[]	UNSORTED	Used to indicate lack of a sorting order.

Method Summary

Modifier and Type	Method	Description
PropertyName	getPropertyName()	Indicate property to sort by, specification is limited to PropertyName.
SortOrder	getSortOrder()	The the sort order - one of ASCENDING or DESCENDING.

Field Detail

UNSORTED

static final SortBy[] UNSORTED

Used to indicate lack of a sorting order.

This is the default value for used when setting up a Query.

NATURAL_ORDER

static final SortBy NATURAL_ORDER

Used to indicate "natural" sorting order, usually according FID (hopefully based on Key attribtues).

This is the order that is most likely to be available in optimzied form, if an Attribute is marked as "key" an optimized ordering should be considered avaialble.

Non optimized orderings are will at the very least require as pass through the data to bring it into memory, you can assume somekind of TreeSet would be used. Where the nodes in the tree would indicate a list of FeatureIds assoicated with the node, in the order encountered.

This is a "NullObject".

REVERSE_ORDER

static final SortBy REVERSE_ORDER

Indicate the reverse order, usually assoicated with "Fid".

This is a "NullObject".

Method Detail

getPropertyName

PropertyName getPropertyName()

Indicate property to sort by, specification is limited to PropertyName.

Not sure if this is allowed to be a xPath expression?

• It would be consist with our use in GeoTools
• It would not seem to agree with the short hand notation used by WFS1.1 (ie. "year A, month A, day A" )

Returns:

Name of property to sort by.

getSortOrder

SortOrder getSortOrder()

The the sort order - one of ASCENDING or DESCENDING.