Preamble

The filtering functionality that is provided by DataTables is very useful for quickly search through the information in the table - however the search is global, and you (or the end user) may wish to filter only on a particular column of data. To met this need the DataTables fnFilter() API function allow you to specify a column to limit to search to. Note that this works in-combination with the global search filter!

The example below shows a table which has a text input box for each column in the footer element of the table. This allows the data in each column to be quickly filtered upon by the end user.

Live example

Initialisation code

var oTable;
var asInitVals = new Array();

$(document).ready(function() {
	oTable = $('#example').dataTable( {
		"oLanguage": {
			"sSearch": "Search all columns:"
		}
	} );
	
	$("tfoot input").keyup( function () {
		/* Filter on the column (the index) of this element */
		oTable.fnFilter( this.value, $("tfoot input").index(this) );
	} );
	
	
	
	/*
	 * Support functions to provide a little bit of 'user friendlyness' to the textboxes in 
	 * the footer
	 */
	$("tfoot input").each( function (i) {
		asInitVals[i] = this.value;
	} );
	
	$("tfoot input").focus( function () {
		if ( this.className == "search_init" )
		{
			this.className = "";
			this.value = "";
		}
	} );
	
	$("tfoot input").blur( function (i) {
		if ( this.value == "" )
		{
			this.className = "search_init";
			this.value = asInitVals[$("tfoot input").index(this)];
		}
	} );
} );

Note that in the above code, the support functions are provided to ensure that the end user knows what data is being filtered upon. fnFilter() is the function of primary import here.

Other examples

Basic initialisation

• Zero configuration
• Feature enablement
• Sorting data
• Multi-column sorting
• Multiple tables
• Hidden columns
• DOM positioning
• State saving
• Alternative pagination styles
• Change language information (internationalisation)

Advanced initialisation

• Events (pre initialisation)
• Events (post initialisation)
• Column rendering
• Sorting without HTML tags
• Row callback
• Footer callback
• Ajax source
• Change language information from a file (internationalisation)

API

• Dynamically add a new row
• Dynamically create a table
• Individual column filtering
• Highlight rows and columns
• User selectable rows (multiple rows)
• User selectable rows (single row) and delete rows
• Editable rows (with jEditable)
• Submit form with elements in table
• Add custom API functions (plug-ins)

Please refer to the DataTables documentation for full information about it's API properties and methods.