I'm using Views and CCK on a local intranet site to keep track of the toner levels for multiple network printers.

One of my CCK fields is a text area where I'm using the PHP input format. My code scrapes an .html page for a value and displays it for me. When viewing this data with Views, the content retrieved via this field is sorted by the PHP code itself, not what the PHP generates.

In other words, Views seems to want to sort by this:

<php etc etc query X page for Y value php>

Rather than what it returns:
11

How can this be fixed?

[Edited to add <code> and </code> tags; nevets]

Comments

Brentnauer’s picture

Brentnauer commented

Side note: The PHP returns the value just fine. I think it may have something to do with Views displaying the data using ['value'] instead of ['view']... Not sure though. My PHP abilities are very limited.

Brentnauer’s picture

Brentnauer commented

My original example was hidden. Here's what I meant to show:

In other words, Views seems to want to sort by this:
< php get value X from external non-Drupal page >

Rather than what it returns:
11

nevets’s picture

nevets commented

Views sorts at the database level (ie ORDER BY) so for text fields with input formats, the sorting is done on the unprocessed text (PHP code in your case).

Brentnauer’s picture

Brentnauer commented

Is there any way to get around this?

Brentnauer’s picture

Brentnauer commented

Messing with the template code for that particular field doesn't work either... Not that it should. Not sure what I was thinking.

If anyone can provide a push in the right direction, I'd appreciate it greatly.

merlinofchaos’s picture

merlinofchaos commented
Project: Views (for Drupal 7) » Content Construction Kit (CCK)
Version: 6.x-2.6 » 6.x-2.x-dev
Component: Miscellaneous » Views Integration
Category: bug » support
Status: Active » Fixed

How these fields are sorted and displayed are up to the module that implemented them.

Note that it is basically not possible to do a SQL sort via the results of PHP code, because SQL can't run the PHP. However, you can use computed field and place your PHP code in teh computed field and have the computed field store the results of the PHP. Then it can sort by that result, which will be in the database.

Passing this to CCK in case there's more, but I suspect this actually is all we can do on the issue, so marking it fixed.

Status: Fixed » Closed (fixed)

Automatically closed -- issue fixed for 2 weeks with no activity.