Datatables exact word search

Question

Hi I\'m using datatables and I would like to filter my data by an exact word.

My table data looks like below;

+-----+----------+
| num | status   |
+         


        

Answer 1

If think you are better off with a custom filter for this task. unbind the default handlers and perform a exact match filter each time instead. If you have a table

var table = $('#example').DataTable()  

Then use a exact match custom filter this way

$('.dataTables_filter input').unbind().bind('keyup', function() {
   var searchTerm = this.value.toLowerCase()
   if (!searchTerm) {
      table.draw()
      return
   }
   $.fn.dataTable.ext.search.push(function(settings, data, dataIndex) {
      for (var i=0;i

here is a demo -> http://jsfiddle.net/hmjnqjbs/1/ try search for tokyo.

---

OK. I realize the question not is about "exact words" as in exact match filter, but more a whole word search. We want to see Vaio Q900 when we search on vaio, but we do not want to see VaioQ900 because Vaio here not is a whole word. This problem is simply solved by using a regex word boundary \b :

$('.dataTables_filter input').unbind().bind('keyup', function() {
   var searchTerm = this.value.toLowerCase(),
       regex = '\\b' + searchTerm + '\\b';
   table.rows().search(regex, true, false).draw();
})

OP's fiddle from the comment below updated -> http://jsfiddle.net/hmjnqjbs/3/

Now active, vaio and so on works as expected.