Get order of variables in scope after dynamic OrderBy

Question

I currently have:

ng-repeat="pesron in people | orderBy:variable"

As events occur, the variables changes and thus the order of the persons changes as well.
Question: How do I access the people in the controller as an array, ordered appropriately?

I tried:

angular.forEach($rootScope.people, function(value,index) {  
    console.log(value);  
});

However, this only gives the variables in the order that they are added to the scope.

Answer 1

Inject $filter into your controller, and do the following

var orderedPeople = $filter('orderBy')($scope.people, 'variable')

If you want this to change whenever variable changes, then you'd need to put the assignment in a $scope.$watch.

However, the bigger picture is that you probably shouldn't structure your app this way. Namely, you're

1. Filtering your array on every digest cycle, even though variable only changes once in a while.
2. Filtering it in your view and then repeating that work in the controller.

The following would be more efficient:

In your controller:

people = []; // initialize me
$scope.$watch(function() { return people; }, sortList, true); 
// we're resorting whenever any property on $scope.people changes.
// This isn't the best solution if people is a huge and complex object
function sortList() {
  $scope.orderedPeople = $filter('orderBy')(people, 'variable');
}

// somewhere else
doSomethingWith($scope.orderedPeople);

In your view:

<div ng-repeat="person in orderedPeople"></div>

See https://docs.angularjs.org/api/ng/filter/orderBy and https://docs.angularjs.org/api/ng/filter/filter