Rails application - how to display an array or arrays

Question

I have a homepage view in my rails app and I also have two types of content, articles and events. I'd like to have a partial on the homepage that displays the most recent articles and events together (mixed, like a news feed). Articles should be sorted by created_at and events should be sorted by start_date together.

My question is how do I create a single partial to show the two types of content arrays in a single array and sort them both properly? Do I create a method and place it in the home_controller to do this?

Thanks

Answer 1

This is how you merge results and a rough implementation of a custom search. I haven't tested the search so no guarantees it works.

@events   = Events.all
@articles = Articles.all

@events_and_articles = (@events + @articles).sort { |a, b|
  a_value = a.is_a?(Event) ? a.start_date : a.created_at 
  b_value = b.is_a?(Event) ? b.start_date : b.created_at

  a_value <=> b_value
}

Answer 2

This might not be the most efficient, but I tested it and it works.

def getstuff
    stuff = Array.new
    #Get the 10 most recent articles and add them to an array.
    Article.order("created_at DESC").limit(10).each do |item|
        stuff.push(item)
    end
    #Add the 10 most recent events to the same array
    Event.order("start_date DESC").limit(10).each do |item|
        stuff.push(item)
    end
    #Sort the array by the correct value based on the class.
    stuff.sort_by! { |item| 
        item.class.name.eql?("Article") ? item["created_at"] : item["start_date"]
     }
    #Return the reverse of the sort result for the correct order.
    return stuff.reverse!
end