Sort records by label

[maxblome]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

Currently, DNS records are sorted in lexicographical order. This can cause confusion when trying to view related records in a list.

Describe the solution you'd like

DNS records should be sorted by their labels.

@			example.com	MX	0 . 
@			example.com	TXT	"v=spf1 -all"
*			example.com	MX	0 . 
*			example.com	TXT	"v=spf1 -all"
bar			example.com	A	127.0.0.1
aaa.bar		example.com	A	127.0.0.1
bbb.bar		example.com	A	127.0.0.1
foo			example.com	A	127.0.0.1
aaa.foo		example.com	A	127.0.0.1
bbb.foo		example.com	A	127.0.0.1

Describe alternatives you've considered

Additional context

[peteeckel]

Hi @maxblome, thanks for your suggestion.

The sorting is actually done by FQDN, which is why @ awkwardly is sorted between d and f for the example.com zone ... I see that's not optimal. Let me see how I can address it in a way that does not require a database migration.

Just to make sure - you are aware that you can click on the "name" column to get them sorted by name, aren't you? In which way is that different from what you would prefer?

[peteeckel]

[maxblome]

@peteeckel yes, I’m aware of that. I forgot one small detail. I meant sorting by label from right to left.

Using the example:
first sort by com
then by example
then by bar and foo
then by aaa and bbb

[peteeckel]

OK, now I understand.

I'm afraid that's not possible with reasonable effort. The main problem is that the labels are no separate fields in the database, but the FQDN is constructed by the name (potentially multi-label) of the record and the name (in most cases multi-label) of the zone. There is no collation sequence in PostgreSQL that would allow sorting by label on that kind of data (the term "label" alone isn't well-defined in database context to start with).

It would probably be possible to define an order_name method for the record tables: https://django-tables2.readthedocs.io/en/latest/pages/ordering.html#table-order-foo-methods and then order the names by that - but that would only work in tables, and it would almost certainly result in other users complaining about exactly that new ordering.

So I don't think we should go down this road, sorry.

[maxblome]

I'm afraid I'm not that familiar with Django, but would it be possible to store the FQDN in reverse in the database and reorder it when loading the page?

Instead of aaa.foo.example.com. .com.example.foo.aaa?

That would allow sorting in the database. But I suppose that would just cause other problems.

[peteeckel]

But I suppose that would just cause other problems.

You're very likely correct :-)

It would probably be possible to create an additional field for the Record object type and store the reversed FQDN in it. But there are installations with tens of thousands of records, and at least one I know of with tens of millions ... storing and reversing the FQDN for one record might be OK, but for several thousand it will cause a considerable performance hit.

And again: The sorting you suggest might be exactly what you (and probably some others) need, but I would expect most users to find it unintuitive and file issues to change it back.