Sort DBGrid by clicking column's title

Question

Well, this seems a little tricky (if not imposible). I'm trying to make my DBGrid sort its data by clicking on column's title.

The thing is that I'm (sadly) working with Delphi 3, I'm not using ADO DataSets and the query gets a lot of rows, thus I can't reopen my TQuery changing the order by clause on clicks.

Someone has implemented something like this?

Solution 1

This is actually done by sorting the dataset, and then the grid reflects the change. It can be done easily enough by creating an index on the dataset field for that column. Of course, this can only be done on a dataset that supports index sorting, such as TClientDataset.

Solution 2

On the TDBGrid's OnTitleClick method you can do something like...

procedure TfmForm1.DBGrid1TitleClick(Column: TColumn);
var
   i: Integer;
begin
   // apply grid formatting changes here e.g. title styling
   with DBGrid1 do
      for i := 0 to Columns.Count - 1 do
         Columns[i].Title.Font.Style := Columns[i].Title.Font.Style - [fsBold];
   Column.Title.Font.Style := Column.Title.Font.Style + [fsBold];

   with nxQuery1 do // the DBGrid's query component (a [NexusDB] TnxQuery)
   begin
      DisableControls;
      if Active then Close;
      for i := 0 to SQL.Count - 1 do
         if (Pos('order by', LowerCase(SQL[i])) > 0) then
            //NOTE: ' desc' The [space] is important
            if (Pos(' desc',LowerCase(SQL[i])) > 0) then 
               SQL[i] := newOrderBySQL
            else
               SQL[i] := newOrderBySQL +' desc';
      // re-add params here if necessary
      if not Active then Open;
      EnableControls;
   end;
end;

There are plenty of ways in which you could optimise this I'm sure however it depends on the capabilities of the components you use. The example above uses a query component though if you used a table component you'd change the index used instead of the 'order by' clause.

The handling of the SQL here is a very basic version. It does not handle things like SQL batch statements, resulting in possible multiple 'order by..' clauses or commented SQL statements i.e. ignoring bracketed comments "{..}" or single line comments "//"

Regards