Sort JCR Nodes

Purpose

Sort Nodes is a tool to sort child nodes by node name or jcr:title, for example, to alphabetize pages or tags in Sites Admin .

How to Use

AEM GUI

In AEM, navigate to the Tools > ACS AEM Commons > Sort JCR Nodes

In the path field, enter the the target path to sort. You can choose whether to sort by node name (default) or by jcr:title and whether sort should be case-sensitive.

HTTP POST

The code in ACS Commons extends the Sling POST Servlet with the acs-commons:sortNodes operation which makes the sorting operation script-friendly.

sort children of /content/someFolder by node name, case-insensitive (defaults)

curl -F":operation=acs-commons:sortNodes" http://localhost:4502/content/someFolder

sort children of /content/someFolder by jcr:title, case-sensitive

curl -F":operation=acs-commons:sortNodes" \
-F":sorterName=byTitle" \
-F":caseSensitive=true" \
http://localhost:4502/content/someFolder

Request Parameters

:sorterName

To select the actual sorter to execute, the :sorterName request parameter is used. Out of the box, the SortNodesOperation supports the following sorters:

:caseSensitive

Optional boolean parameter to control whether sort should be case sensitive (default: false), e.g.

+  /content/someFolder
     -  a           
     -  A           
     -  b           
     -  B           

You can turn it off by setting the -F":caseSensitive=true" request parameter and the order will change to

+  /content/someFolder
     -  A           
     -  B           
     -  a           
     -  b           

:nonHierarchyFirst

Optional boolean parameter to control whether sort should move non-hierarchy nodes to the top (default: true)

The default value is true which means jcr:content, rep:policy and such will be sorted first followed by other, hierarchy nodes like cq:Page, e.g.

+  /content/someFolder
     -  jcr:content // non-hierarchy
     -  rep:policy  // non-hierarchy
     -  a           // cq:Page
     -  b           // cq:Page
     -  c           // cq:Page
     -  p           // cq:Page

You can turn it off by setting the -F":nonHierarchyFirst=false" parameter which will switch the mode to sort nodes regardless if they are nt:hierarchyNode or not

+  /content/someFolder
     -  a           // cq:Page
     -  b           // cq:Page
     -  c           // cq:Page
     -  jcr:content // non-hierarchy
     -  p           // cq:Page
     -  rep:policy  // non-hierarchy

:respectNumbers

Optional boolean parameter to control whether numbers should be sorted first followed by alphabetical values (default: false)

The default value is false which means all values will be sorted alphabetically, e.g.

+  /content/someFolder
     - 1
     - 1-A
     - 101 
     - 11 
     - 2-B
     - 20
     - 200
     - 22 
     - aaa 
     - bbb 

With :respectNumbers=true numbers will be sorted first followed by alphabetical values:

+  /content/someFolder
     - 1
     - 11 
     - 20
     - 22 
     - 101 
     - 200
     - 1-A
     - 2-B
     - aaa 
     - bbb 

Extending SortNodesOperation

OSGi services of the com.adobe.acs.commons.sorter.NodeSorter type can be used to implement new node sorters. For example, to register a sorter by sling:resourceType deploy the service below:

import com.adobe.acs.commons.sorter.NodeSorter;
import org.apache.jackrabbit.commons.JcrUtils;
import org.osgi.service.component.annotations.Component;

import javax.jcr.Node;
import javax.jcr.RepositoryException;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import java.util.Comparator;


@Component
public class ResourceTypeSorter implements NodeSorter {

    /**
     * A unique name which will be used to find the actual sorter by the
     * <code>:sorterName</code> request parameter
     */
    public String getName() {
        return "resourceType";
    }

    /**
     * The label that will appear in the 'Select Sorter' drop-down in UI
     */
    public String getLabel() {
        return "By resource type";
    }

    /**
     * Create a comparator to sort nodes.
     * Implementations can read additional parameters from request, e.g.
      * whether search should be case-sensitive, ascending/descending, etc.
    */
    @Override
    public Comparator<Node> createComparator(HttpServletRequest request) {

        return (n1, n2) -> {
            try {
                String val1 = JcrUtils.getStringProperty(n1, "jcr:content/sling:resourceType", "");
                String val2 = JcrUtils.getStringProperty(n2, "jcr:content/sling:resourceType", "");
                return val1.compareTo(val2);
            } catch (RepositoryException e) {
                return 0;
            }
        };
    }

}

Once the ResourceTypeSorter service is deployed you should be able to select the new sorter in the UI:

or pass it as -F":sorterName=resourceType" request parameter in curl:

curl -F":operation=acs-commons:sortNodes" -F":sorterName=resourceType" \
   http://localhost:4502/content/we-retail