Sort by MatrixBlock Field / Eager load Matrix Field

Question

Is there currently a way to eager load the matrix values of an element and thus be able to sort by one of its fields? Imagine you have something like the following:

$criteria = craft()->elements->getCriteria(ElementType::MatrixBlock);
$criteria->type = 'mytype';
$blocks = $criteria->find();

This would create a select from the following tables:

FROM   `craft_elements` `elements` 
   JOIN `craft_elements_i18n` `elements_i18n` 
     ON elements_i18n.elementid = elements.id 
   JOIN `craft_matrixblocks` `matrixblocks` 
     ON matrixblocks.id = elements.id 
   JOIN `craft_matrixblocktypes` `matrixblocktypes` 
     ON matrixblocktypes.id = matrixblocks.typeid 

Obviously the most important table for my task at hand is missing: the craft_matrixcontent_mytype table. I'm not able order by mytable.myfield and additionally, while looping those blocks I have the N+1 problem where it builds an extra query to fetch the actual block content.

Am I somehow able to load all MatrixBlocks of a given type, INCLUDING the values?

Answer 1

After digging through some code I found out, that the MatrixBlockElementType just returns a content table (which is necessary for the eager loading part), if a fieldId is given:

$criteria = craft()->elements->getCriteria(ElementType::MatrixBlock);
$criteria->type = 'mytype';
$criteria->fieldId = 90;
$criteria->order = 'field_mytype_myfield';

$blocks = $criteria->find();

Like this everything seems to work as expected and I'm again in love with crafts flexibility :)

Am I right that I have to pass in the id? I can't do it via the field handle 'mymatrixfieldhandle', correct?