Nested resources as_json, sorted, with specific columns - ruby-on-rails

Question

I have 3 resources: pages, sections, and fields each with name and order columns.
My goal is to get a JSON representation of all of these resources, ordered by their order columns.
Example output:
[
{"name": "Page 1", "order": 0, "sections": [
{"name": "Section 1", "order": 0, "fields": [
{"name": "Field 1", "order": 0},
{"name": "Field 2", "order": 1}
]},
{"name": "Section 2", "order": 0, "fields": [
{"name": "Field 1", "order": 0}
]}
]},
{"name": "Page 2", "order": 1, "sections": [
{"name": "Section 1", "order": 0, "fields": [
{"name": "Field 1", "order": 0}
]}
]}
]
Note that the above is actual JSON (i.e. after running to_json).
For the life of me, I can't figure out a way to do this with ActiveModel.
My most successful attempt is something like this:
Page.joins(sections: :fields)
.as_json(only: [:name, :order], include: {
sections: {only: [:name, :order], include: {
fields: {only: [:prototype_id, :order]}
}}
})
This allows me to select the name and order, but then I have to recursively sort every array.
If I try to let ActiveModel do the sorting, I have to select the specific columns in SQL, which requires me to join, which requires a distinct, which makes the JSON nesting very tricky...
Can anyone point out what I'm doing wrong here?
Thanks for your time.

Answer 1

There are 2 solutions to implement the Order on AR:
Solution #1:
You can order the model and its' associations using .order as below:
Page.joins(sections: :fields).order("pages.order, sections.order, fields.order")
Reference:
https://apidock.com/rails/ActiveRecord/QueryMethods/order
Solution #2:
Add sorting to default scope as below:
class Page
default_scope { order(order: :asc) }
end
class Section
default_scope { order(order: :asc) }
end
class Field
default_scope { order(order: :asc) }
end
Reference:
https://apidock.com/rails/ActiveRecord/Base/default_scope/class