[angularjs] Sorting dropdown alphabetically in AngularJS

I'm populating a dropdown through the use of ng-options which is hooked to a controller that in turn is calling a service. Unfortunately the data coming in is a mess and I need to be able to sort it alphabetically.

You figure that something like $.sortBy would do it but unfortunately it didn't do jack. I know I can sort it via javascript with a helper method function asc(a,b) or something like that but I refuse to believe that there is not cleaner way of doing this plus I don't want to bloat the controller with helper methods. It is something so basic in principle so I don't understand why AngularJS doesn't have this.

Is there a way of doing something like $orderBy('asc')?

Example:

<select ng-option="items in item.$orderBy('asc')"></select>

It would be extremely useful to have options in orderBy so you can do whatever you want, whenever you usually try to sort data.

var module = angular.module("example", []);

module.controller("orderByController", function ($scope) {
    $scope.orderByValue = function (value) {
        return value;
    };

    $scope.items = ["c", "b", "a"];
    $scope.objList = [
        {
            "name": "c"
        }, {
            "name": "b"
        }, {
            "name": "a"
        }];
        $scope.item = "b";
    });

http://jsfiddle.net/Nfv42/65/

For anyone who wants to sort the variable in third layer:

<select ng-option="friend.pet.name for friend in friends"></select>

you can do it like this

<select ng-option="friend.pet.name for friend in friends | orderBy: 'pet.name'"></select>

You should be able to use filter: orderBy

orderBy can accept a third option for the reverse flag.

<select ng-option="item.name for item in items | orderBy:'name':true"></select>

Here item is sorted by 'name' property in a reversed order. The 2nd argument can be any order function, so you can sort in any rule.

@see http://docs.angularjs.org/api/ng.filter:orderBy