java-topology/docs/tickets/rails-0004-enumerable-in-order-of-series-index.md
russell@unturf.com 547a9f5738 ORM wave 2: 10 new defects — Active Record +3, Exposed +3, SeaORM +4 (167 sites, 64 ecosystems)
rails-0009: FilterAttributeHandler filter_parameters Array O(A×F) → Set (450×)
rails-0010: Encryption::AutoFilteredParameters two Array scans → Set (250×)
rails-0011: TimeZoneConversion skip_list Array O(M×C×S) → Set (20×)

exposed-0001: SchemaUtilityApi mapMissingColumnStatements O(N×M) → map (118×)
exposed-0002: IdentifierManagerApi isAKeyword O(K) linear → HashSet (144×)
exposed-0003: Table.clone consParams.map fresh List → hoisted HashSet (6×)

seaorm-0001: active_model establish_links leftover.any O(N²) → HashSet (501×)
seaorm-0002: rbac engine group_permissions .values().find() → HashMap by ID (502×)
seaorm-0003: schema builder sorted_tables Vec::contains → HashSet (500×)
seaorm-0004: TopologicalSort from_iter seen Vec O(N²) → BTreeSet (28×)

Unit tests: RailsTest 11/11, ExposedTest 3/3, SeaORMTest 4/4 PASS
Whitepaper: 157→167 sites, 62→64 ecosystems; §13.12 ORM Wave 2 added
2026-03-27 13:49:46 -04:00

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rails-0004: Enumerable#in_order_of — O(N log N × S) series.index in sort_by block

Severity: MEDIUM File: activesupport/lib/active_support/core_ext/enumerable.rb Line: ~45 (in_order_of method) Status: PATCHED

Description

Enumerable#in_order_of sorts a collection by the position of each element in a series Array using sort_by { |e| series.index(e) }. Array#index is O(S) per call, and sort_by invokes the block O(N log N) times — total O(N log N × S).

Used in ActiveRecord attribute ordering and result set sorting, so called on every query result set that uses custom ordering.

Root Cause

series.index(value) is an O(S) linear scan called inside a sort_by comparator block that executes O(N log N) times. No position index is pre-built.

Fix

# BEFORE
sort_by { |element| series.index(element) || series.length }

# AFTER
series_map = series.each_with_index.to_h
sort_by { |element| series_map.fetch(element, series.length) }

Speedup

~10x at N=3000 collection, S=300 series