New sorting plugin - sort by any number, ignore text

davidkonrad

I have made a new sorting plug-in that maybe could interest others, perhaps be included on the sorting plug-ins list.

sort-numbers-ignore-text sorts by any number, ignoring text in the columns.
Plain text columns are pushed to the bottom of the table. By any numbers means :

• integers, like 66
• decimal numbers, like 66.66
• negative numbers, like -66.66 (+66.66 as well)
• scientific numbers, like 66.66e+10
• illegal numbers, like 066, which is considered as 66

function sortNumbersIgnoreText(a, b, high) {  
    var reg = /[+-]?((\d+(\.\d*)?)|\.\d+)([eE][+-]?[0-9]+)?/;     
    a = a.match(reg);  
    a = a !== null ? parseFloat(a[0]) : high;  
    b = b.match(reg);  
    b = b !== null ? parseFloat(b[0]) : high;  
    return ((a < b) ? -1 : ((a > b) ? 1 : 0));      
}  
jQuery.extend( jQuery.fn.dataTableExt.oSort, {  
    "sort-numbers-ignore-text-asc": function (a, b) {  
        return sortNumbersIgnoreText(a, b, Number.POSITIVE_INFINITY);  
    },  
    "sort-numbers-ignore-text-desc": function (a, b) {  
        return sortNumbersIgnoreText(a, b, Number.NEGATIVE_INFINITY) * -1;  
    }  
});  

code at github -> https://github.com/davidkonrad/datatables-sort-numbers-ignore-text
demo -> http://jsfiddle.net/6qmkY/

Adam84

Hi David,
This sorting plugin is really useful. Can you suggest how you would modify the regular expression so that it will allow comma separated numbers?

ignignokt

Looks pretty useful for the non server-side people. This is one reason I love using server-side for everything though. You have an INT in the database, and in your actual column it can be "I saved $1,572.89 on my car insurance!". Then when you sort, it still sorts by what is actually in the DB column, which is just 1572.89