globalsearch: search result view: ordering results by object_type not working

[ITJamie]

NetBox version

v3.4.2

Python version

3.10

Steps to Reproduce

goto: https://demo.netbox.dev/search/?q=100
press "Type" on the search results table header, results do not re-order

Expected Behavior

objects to be grouped together by object type when sorted by object_type. instead "field" seems to take precidence

Observed Behavior

Some of the same object types are split apart, eg on the demo site some of the device types are separated, also when you try and order in reverse the order does not seem to change.

In our internal instance we sometimes see devices intermingled with other objects.

sorting by "field" works as expected, sorting by "type" does not and seems to fallback to sorting by "field"

[decoupca]

I have a PR ready for this one.

Edit: however, looks like ordering by object column also doesn't work as expected.

Since the object's name isn't part of the data passed directly to SearchTable, I'm having a hard time setting the right order_by value for that column. The object's name is generated by linkify(), which calls the model's get_absolute_url() method. I've tried a bunch of accessor strings trying to resolve the object's full name, but no dice.

Some that haven't worked:

• object___meta__verbose_name
• object__verbose_name
• object__name

Any thoughts?

[decoupca]

Spent some time in the debugger looking through the result object list, but I couldn't find a single accessor that works across all search result object types. Any accessor I pass to order_by only works on a subset of results, i.e., some of the results are ordered alphabetically like you'd expect, but others aren't. And as far as I can tell, there is no way to provide conditional accessors to order_by. Unless I missed a universal property/accessor that renders an object's name across all object types, the only solution I see would be to add such a universal property/accessor to all object types, but that's clearly beyond the scope of this issue.

I have the original issue resolved. @kkthxbye-code do you want me to move forward with that as a PR and leave object sorting as a separate bug, or do you have another idea on how to take care of object sorting too?

[decoupca]

@jeremystretch care to weigh in here? I can submit a PR for the original bugfix & open a new issue but wanted maintainer input first.

[decoupca]

Submitted my PR for original issue, opening new issue for object column sorting