dynamic asc desc sort - asp.net-mvc-3

Question

I am trying to create table headers that sort during a back end call in nhibernate. When clicking the header it sends a string indicating what to sort by (ie "Name", "NameDesc") and sending it to the db call.
The db can get quite large so I also have back end filters and pagination built into reduce the size of the retrieved data and therefore the orderby needs to happen before or at the same time as the filters and skip and take to avoid ordering the smaller data. Here is an example of the QueryOver call:
IList<Event> s =
session.QueryOver<Event>(() => #eventAlias)
.Fetch(#event => #event.FiscalYear).Eager
.JoinQueryOver(() => #eventAlias.FiscalYear, () => fyAlias, JoinType.InnerJoin, Restrictions.On(() => fyAlias.Id).IsIn(_years))
.Where(() => !#eventAlias.IsDeleted);
.OrderBy(() => fyAlias.RefCode).Asc
.ThenBy(() => #eventAlias.Name).Asc
.Skip(numberOfRecordsToSkip)
.Take(numberOfRecordsInPage)
.List();
How can I accomplish this?

Answer 1

One way how to achieve this (one of many, because you can also use some fully-typed filter object etc or some query builder) could be like this draft:
Part one and two:
// I. a reference to our query
var query = session.QueryOver<Event>(() => #eventAlias);
// II. join, filter... whatever needed
query
.Fetch(#event => #event.FiscalYear).Eager
var joinQuery = query
.JoinQueryOver(...)
.Where(() => !#eventAlias.IsDeleted)
...
Part three:
// III. Order BY
// Assume we have a list of strings (passed from a UI client)
// here represented by these two values
var sortBy = new List<string> {"Name", "CodeDesc"};
// first, have a reference for the OrderBuilder
IQueryOverOrderBuilder<Event, Event> order = null;
// iterate the list
foreach (var sortProperty in sortBy)
{
// use Desc or Asc?
var useDesc = sortProperty.EndsWith("Desc");
// Clean the property name
var name = useDesc
? sortProperty.Remove(sortProperty.Length - 4, 4)
: sortProperty;
// Build the ORDER
order = order == null
? query.OrderBy(Projections.Property(name))
: query.ThenBy(Projections.Property(name))
;
// use DESC or ASC
query = useDesc ? order.Desc : order.Asc;
}
Finally the results:
// IV. back to query... call the DB and get the result
IList<Event> s = query
.List<Event>();
This draft is ready to do sorting on top of the root query. You can also extend that to be able to add some order statements to joinQuery (e.g. if the string is "FiscalYear.MonthDesc"). The logic would be similar, but built around the joinQuery (see at the part one)