Sort threads by last message date in document ThreadManager queries

Due to MongoDB limitations and the current schema, we cannot sort by the timestamps present in the metadata fields and match behavior of the ORM's ThreadManager. This would require use of Mongo's positional operator ($) in sorts, but it may be possible with the upcoming aggregation framework in MongoDB 2.2. TODO's have been left to revisit this when possible. To compromise, we can sort by the creation timestamp of the last message in the thread, which is easy to denormalize and index.
FriendsOfSymfony · Dec 14, 2011 · cef0798 · cef0798
1 parent 4f24291
commit cef0798
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Showing 3 changed files with 46 additions and 6 deletions.
diff --git a/Document/Thread.php b/Document/Thread.php
@@ -45,6 +45,16 @@ abstract class Thread extends AbstractThread
      */
     protected $createdAt;
 
+    /**
+     * Date that the last message in this thread was created at
+     *
+     * This denormalization field is used for sorting threads in the inbox and
+     * sent list.
+     *
+     * @var \DateTime
+     */
+    protected $lastMessageDate;
+
     /**
      * All text contained in the thread messages
      * Used for the full text search
@@ -229,6 +239,7 @@ public function addMetadata(ThreadMetadata $meta)
     public function denormalize()
     {
         $this->doCreatedByAndAt();
+        $this->doLastMessageDate();
         $this->doKeywords();
         $this->doSpam();
         $this->doMetadataLastMessageDates();
@@ -251,6 +262,18 @@ protected function doCreatedByAndAt()
         $this->setCreatedAt($message->getCreatedAt());
     }
 
+    /**
+     * Ensures that the lastMessageDate property is up to date
+     */
+    protected function doLastMessageDate()
+    {
+        if (!$message = $this->getLastMessage()) {
+            return;
+        }
+
+        $this->lastMessageDate = $message->getCreatedAt();
+    }
+
     /**
      * Adds all messages contents to the keywords property
      */

diff --git a/DocumentManager/ThreadManager.php b/DocumentManager/ThreadManager.php
@@ -82,15 +82,19 @@ public function getParticipantInboxThreadsQueryBuilder(ParticipantInterface $par
     {
         $queryBuilder = $this->repository->createQueryBuilder();
 
-        // TODO: sort by date of last message written by an other participant
         return $queryBuilder
             // the participant hasn't deleted the thread, and another user wrote a message
             ->field('metadata')->elemMatch($this
                 ->getNotDeletedByParticipantExpression($queryBuilder, $participant)
                 ->field('lastMessageDate')->notEqual(null)
             )
             // the thread does not contain spam or flood
-            ->field('isSpam')->equals(false);
+            ->field('isSpam')->equals(false)
+            /* TODO: Sort by date of the last message written by another
+             * participant, as is done for ORM. This is not possible with the
+             * current schema; compromise by sorting by last message date.
+             */
+            ->sort('lastMessageDate', 'desc');
     }
 
     /**
@@ -120,13 +124,17 @@ public function getParticipantSentThreadsQueryBuilder(ParticipantInterface $part
     {
         $queryBuilder = $this->repository->createQueryBuilder();
 
-        // TODO: sort by date of last message written by this participant
         return $queryBuilder
             // the participant hasn't deleted the thread, and has written a message
             ->field('metadata')->elemMatch($this
                 ->getNotDeletedByParticipantExpression($queryBuilder, $participant)
                 ->field('lastParticipantMessageDate')->notEqual(null)
-            );
+            )
+            /* TODO: Sort by date of the last message written by this
+             * participant, as is done for ORM. This is not possible with the
+             * current schema; compromise by sorting by last message date.
+             */
+            ->sort('lastMessageDate', 'desc');
     }
 
     /**
@@ -161,12 +169,16 @@ public function getParticipantThreadsBySearchQueryBuilder(ParticipantInterface $
 
         $queryBuilder = $this->repository->createQueryBuilder();
 
-        // TODO: sort by date of last message written by an other participant
         return $queryBuilder
             // the thread is not deleted by this participant
             ->field('metadata')->elemMatch($this->getNotDeletedByParticipantExpression($queryBuilder, $participant))
             // TODO: this search is not anchored and uses no indexes
-            ->field('keywords')->equals(new \MongoRegex($regex));
+            ->field('keywords')->equals(new \MongoRegex($regex))
+            /* TODO: Sort by date of the last message written by another
+             * participant, as is done for ORM. This is not possible with the
+             * current schema; compromise by sorting by last message date.
+             */
+            ->sort('lastMessageDate', 'desc');
     }
 
     /**

diff --git a/Resources/config/doctrine/Thread.mongodb.xml b/Resources/config/doctrine/Thread.mongodb.xml
@@ -18,6 +18,8 @@
 
         <field name="createdAt" fieldName="createdAt" type="date" />
 
+        <field name="lastMessageDate" fieldName="lastMessageDate" type="date" />
+
         <field name="isSpam" fieldName="isSpam" type="boolean" />
 
         <field name="keywords" fieldName="keywords" type="string" />
@@ -26,6 +28,9 @@
             <index>
                 <key name="createdAt" order="desc" />
             </index>
+            <index>
+                <key name="lastMessageDate" order="desc" />
+            </index>
             <!--  ThreadManager::findThreadsCreatedBy() -->
             <index>
                 <key name="createdBy.$id" order="asc" />