sortdir not working on enum data type in MVC 3 WebGird

Question

I have the following structure:

Model

public class EventEntry : LogEntry
{
    public EventType Type { get; set; }

    public string Source { get; set; }
}

public enum EventType : int
{
    Information = 1,
    Warning = 2,
    Error = 3
} 

View

<div id="grid">
@{
    var grid = new WebGrid(canPage: true, rowsPerPage: Ctrl.PageSize, canSort: true, ajaxUpdateContainerId: "grid");
    grid.Bind(Model.Events, rowCount: Model.TotalRecords, autoSortAndPage: false);

    grid.Pager(WebGridPagerModes.All);
    @grid.GetHtml(htmlAttributes: new { id="grid" },
            columns: grid.Columns(
            grid.Column("Type"),
            grid.Column("Source"));    
}
</div>

Controller

public ActionResult Index(int? page, string sort, string sortdir) {...}

When I click on "Source" column that is of type string, the sordir will change from "ASC" to "DESC" but when I try the same thing on the "Type" column sordir will always return "ASC".

Answer 1

The current accepted answer is not the answer to your problem.

It appears that enums are not sorted when you do not mention the columnname in the bind operation. I fixed this by providing all the required column names when binding my model to the webgrid. The UserType property is an enumeration in this example.

        var webgrid = new WebGrid(rowsPerPage: 25);

        webgrid.Bind(Model, new[] { "FirstName", "MiddleName", "SurName", "UserType" });

        var columns = webgrid.Columns(
            webgrid.Column("FirstName", "Voornaam"),
            webgrid.Column("MiddleName", "Tussenvoegsels"),
            webgrid.Column("SurName", "Achternaam"),
            webgrid.Column("UserType", "Type gebruiker"),                
        );

So I reckon that the sorting will work without changing your controller if you implement to following code:

<div id="grid">
@{
    var grid = new WebGrid(canPage: true, rowsPerPage: Ctrl.PageSize, canSort: true, ajaxUpdateContainerId: "grid");
    grid.Bind(Model.Events, new[] { "Type", "Source" }, rowCount: Model.TotalRecords, autoSortAndPage: false);

    grid.Pager(WebGridPagerModes.All);
    @grid.GetHtml(htmlAttributes: new { id="grid" },
            columns: grid.Columns(
            grid.Column("Type"),
            grid.Column("Source"));    
}
</div>

Answer 2

Try setting the Grid.SortColumn with the last sorted column.

Controller code

ViewData["lastsortedcol"] = Request["sort"];

View code.

var grid = new WebGrid();

grid.Bind(source: userItems.PagedSet, rowCount: userItemsForSale.TotalCount,autoSortAndPage:false);

grid.SortColumn = (string)ViewData["lastsortedcol"] ;

Response.Write(grid.GetHtml(          
  columns: grid.Columns
      (
            grid.Column(columnName: "ItemName", header: "ItemName", format: (item) => Html.Label(((UserItemForSale)item.Value).ItemDetails.Name)),
            grid.Column(columnName: "Quantity", header: "Quantity", format: (item) => Html.Label(((UserItemForSale)item.Value).Qty + ""))
      )
));