Is it good practice to have linq query in Controllers?

Question

I'm not very familiar with the MVC pattern. Could you tell me which one of the following three controller actions is better? Thanks :)

(1) Have query in action:

public ActionResult List()
{
   var query = repository.Query().Where(it => it.IsHandled).OrderBy(it => it.Id);
   // ...
}

(2) Have query in service:

public ActionResult List() 
{
    var items = service.GetHandledItemsOrderById();
    // ...
}

(3) Have order by in action:

public ActionResult List()
{
    var items = service.GetHandledItems().OrderBy(it => it.Id);
    // ...
}

If we choose (1), then we have too much business logic in controller?

If we choose (2), there might be lots of service methods like GetXXXByYYY().

If we choose (3), why we encapsulate Where(it => it.IsHandled) but not
OrderBy(it => it.Id.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

I'm sure opinions may vary, but I've learned to try to keep as much business logic in the service as you can. 3 would be my choice. With 1, you've already spotted the issue. With 2, you are introducing display precedence in a service. With 3, you handle display preferences where necessary. If you were to introduce another interface to your business layer, you are requiring potentially, unnecessary code iterations by choosing 2.