order not working with sortWhitelist - cakephp-3.0

Question

Using CakePHP 3.5.3
Hi,
The below code works works as it should and displays the result set and orders it by the due_date asc.
public $paginate = [
'limit' => 5,
'order' => [
'Activities.due_date' => 'asc'
]
];
public function index()
{
$session = $this->request->session();
// Declare client id 1
$cidOne = null;
$cidOne = $session->read('Cid.one');
// NOTE* DON'T USE ORDER HERE BECAUSE THE SORTS WILL NOT WORK
$query = $this->Activities->find('all')
->where(['cid_1' => $cidOne])
->andWhere(['status' => 1]);
// Send the query to the view.
$this->set('activities', $this->paginate($query));
}
But when I add sortWhitelist as below the initial page load is not sorted by the due_date and no sort arrow is displayed.
public $paginate = [
'sortWhitelist' => [
'due_date', 'related_to', 'subject', 'post_code', 'type', 'priority'
],
'limit' => 5,
'order' => [
'Activities.due_date' => 'asc'
]
];
Thanks for any help. Z.

Answer 1

There must be consistency between the sortWhitelist array, the order array and the paginator link
so if your field is Activities.due_date your code becomes:
public $paginate = [
'sortWhitelist' => [
'Activities.due_date', 'related_to', 'subject', 'post_code', 'type', 'priority'
],
'limit' => 5,
'order' => [
'Activities.due_date' => 'asc'
]
];
and in your view
<?= $this->Paginator->sort('Activities.due_date', __('Due Date')) ?>
If there is no ambiguity in the fields names you can omit the Model name and simply use due_date as column name