Using NULLS FIRST / NULLS LAST ordering in Rails

Methods nulls_first & nulls_last were added to Arel in Rails 6.1 for PostgreSQL and in most other databases in Rails 7.

In an earlier TIL, I showed how to order using Arel.

Procedure.order(Procedure.arel_table[:name].desc.nulls_first)

=> SELECT "procedures".* FROM "procedures" ORDER BY "procedures"."name" DESC NULLS FIRST

Procedure.order(Procedure.arel_table[:name].desc.nulls_last)

=> SELECT "procedures".* FROM "procedures" ORDER BY "procedures"."name" DESC NULLS LAST

Here the desc method is wrapping the Arel attribute in a node so that it can be utilized in order. nulls_first/nulls_last is just wrapping the previous ordering node.

Procedure.arel_table[:name].desc.nulls_first

=> 
#<Arel::Nodes::NullsFirst:0x00007fb73ebf18f8
 @expr=
  #<Arel::Nodes::Descending:0x00007fb73ebf1920
   @expr=
    #<struct Arel::Attributes::Attribute
     relation=
      #<Arel::Table:0x00007fb735a02dc0
       @klass=Procedure(id: integer, name: string, created_at: datetime, updated_at: datetime),
       @name="procedures",
       @table_alias=nil,
       @type_caster=
        #<ActiveRecord::TypeCaster::Map:0x00007fb735a02cd0
         @klass=Procedure(id: integer, name: string, created_at: datetime, updated_at: datetime)>>,
     name="name">>>

I mention this as you need to define the order before utilizing the nulls methods.