How Can jQuery UI Sortable's `serialize` Method Be Used for Database Updates?

How to Utilize jQuery UI Sortable to Manage Order and Database Updates

With jQuery UI's sortable capability, users can establish and modify the order of elements. This raised the question of how to translate these changes into database updates.

Solution:

jQuery UI provides the invaluable serialize method for this purpose. It effortlessly generates an array of the elements, each represented by its ID.

Here's a comprehensive example that dispatches data to a designated URL upon element rearrangement:

$('#element').sortable({
    axis: 'y',
    update: function (event, ui) {
        var data = $(this).sortable('serialize');

        // Communicate with the server using $.post or $.ajax
        $.ajax({
            data: data,
            type: 'POST',
            url: '/your/url/here'
        });
    }
});

This code establishes a sortable list, trigger an update event when the position of an element changes, and gathers the sorted IDs into an array.

Typically, elements have their database IDs embedded in their attributes. The serialize function produces a POST query string resembling item[]=1&item[]=2, using these IDs to encode the order.

In the PHP domain, a simple loop can traverse this received array and enact database updates accordingly:

$i = 0;

foreach ($_POST['item'] as $value) {
    // Execute statement:
    // UPDATE [Table] SET [Position] = $i WHERE [EntityId] = $value
    $i++;
}

To visualize this process in action, explore the example on jsFiddle.

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