Sorting numbers with # in front, and inside an A tag

Fringo

Hi all,

What is the best way to go about having a column with values like #1, #2, #3 etc ?
The content in the td is also inside an A tag. E.g.

<td>
<a class="record-open" data-itemID="1000" href="#">#1</a>
</td>

etc.

I've tried setting column type to 'html-num' to no avail. I've also tried removing the # from the td and using 'render' to apply a function with the # added. Neither option works. The column is still sorted like a string.

Any ideas?

Cheers

kthorngren

One option is to use Orthogonal Data to extract the numbers from the a tag for the sort type.

Kevin

Fringo

I see... I think I looked at that but didn't understand it the first time around. I've now used this:

    {
        "targets": 1,
        "render": function ( data, type, row, meta ) {
            if(type == 'sort')
            {
                var rgx = />#([0-9]+)</;
                data = data.match(rgx)[1];
            }
            return data;
        },
        type: "num"
    }

It seems to do the trick. Let me know if you think there's a better way.

Cheers

Fringo

The above solution aside, it is surprising Datatables doesn't detect this automatically. It is a fairly simple format and I'm guessing its quite commonly used.

kthorngren

You could also try using the Natural sorting plugin.

Maybe this doc will help:
https://datatables.net/manual/data/renderers

Kevin