Sorting (alphabetical order) to ignore empty cells : dataTables

Question

So the question has already been asked here, but the solution doesn\'t work for me (I might do something wrong). I want to sort my tables by alphabetical order (\"type\" : \

Answer 1

UPDATE: Embedded Stack Snippet.

I think the aoColumns is a legacy option for DataTables v 1.9. That being said, you might also need to use $.extend to include your custom sort functions.

Please take a look at the Stack Snippet below, or this live demo on jsfiddle. In a nutshell, I define the name column as the type non-empty-string during the table initalization. Then I extended the jQuery.fn.dataTableExt.oSort API with a non-empty-string-asc and a non-empty-string-desc sorting functions. See if this is what you are looking for.

Stack Snippet:

jQuery.extend( jQuery.fn.dataTableExt.oSort, {
    "non-empty-string-asc": function (str1, str2) {
        if(str1 == "")
            return 1;
        if(str2 == "")
            return -1;
        return ((str1 < str2) ? -1 : ((str1 > str2) ? 1 : 0));
    },
 
    "non-empty-string-desc": function (str1, str2) {
        if(str1 == "")
            return 1;
        if(str2 == "")
            return -1;
        return ((str1 < str2) ? 1 : ((str1 > str2) ? -1 : 0));
    }
} );


var dataTable = $('#example').dataTable({
    columnDefs: [
       {type: 'non-empty-string', targets: 0} // define 'name' column as non-empty-string type
    ]
});
dataTable.api().row.add(['John Smith', 'Intern', 'San Francisco', 19, 2011/05/25, 62000]).draw();

    

        

            
Name
            
Position
            
Office
            
Age
            
Start date
            
Salary
        
    
    

        

            
Tiger Nixon
            
System Architect
            
Edinburgh
            
61
            
2011/04/25
            
$320,800
        
        

            
Garrett Winters
            
Accountant
            
Tokyo
            
63
            
2011/07/25
            
$170,750
        
        

            
Ashton Cox
            
Junior Technical Author
            
San Francisco
            
66
            
2009/01/12
            
$86,000
        
        

            
Cedric Kelly
            
Senior Javascript Developer
            
Edinburgh
            
22
            
2012/03/29
            
$433,060
        
        
        

            

            
Junior Technical Author
            
San Francisco
            
66
            
2009/01/12
            
$86,000
        
        

            

            
Senior Javascript Developer
            
Edinburgh
            
22
            
2012/03/29
            
$433,060