Alphabetically Sort The State/Province Drop Down

Question

I have an issue in sorting alphabetically those items in the state/region drop down.

// File: Mage/Directory/Helper/Data.php (line:150)
$json = Mage::helper('core')->jsonEncode($regions); 
Mage::log($json);

I debugged above line and had checked the order in this var $json as expected. However, when json data comes to client-side, somehow that json object sorted itself based on the region_id. Is there a way to stop this auto-sort?

Answer 1

I think the problem in your case is not the code. It's the browser.
You can read more about it here.

And here is a simple test you can run in the console.

var a = {1:'a', 3:'b', 2: 'c'};
console.log(a);

the result will be (at least on chrome and FF):

Object { 1="a", 2="c", 3="b"}  

I was able to overcome this with the following trick.

In js/varien/form.js in the class RegionUpdater I added an other function to sort the region dropdown.

sortSelect : function (){
    elem = this.regionSelectEl;
    var tmpAry = new Array();
    var currentVal = $(elem).value;
    for (var i=0;i<$(elem).options.length;i++) {
        if (i == 0) continue;
        tmpAry[i-1] = new Array();
        tmpAry[i-1][0] = $(elem).options[i].text;
        tmpAry[i-1][1] = $(elem).options[i].value;
    }
    tmpAry.sort();
    while ($(elem).options.length > 0) {
       $(elem).options[0] = null;
    }
    for (var i=1;i<=tmpAry.length;i++) {
        var op = new Option(tmpAry[i-1][0], tmpAry[i-1][1]);
        $(elem).options[i] = op;
    }
    $(elem).value = currentVal;
    return;
}

and just call this function inside the update function of the same class.

Right before if (this.disableAction=='hide') { add this line

this.sortSelect();

Answer 2

I'm not sure what you are exactly talking about. Where in magento, registration or checkout? But I'll try.

The regions are ordered by name by default:

\Mage_Directory_Model_Resource_Region_Collection::_construct
protected function _construct()
{
    $this->_init('directory/region');

    $this->_countryTable    = $this->getTable('directory/country');
    $this->_regionNameTable = $this->getTable('directory/country_region_name');

    $this->addOrder('name', Varien_Data_Collection::SORT_ORDER_ASC);
    $this->addOrder('default_name', Varien_Data_Collection::SORT_ORDER_ASC);
}

So when your regions are not ordered, something is wrong.

You should check where the ordering is changed.