Preamble

At times you may wish to change the default sorting direction for columns (all or some of them) to be 'descending' rather than DataTables' default ascending. This can be done through the use of the aoColumns[].asSorting initialisation parameter. This parameter also allows you to limit the sorting to a single direction, or you could add complex behaviour to the sorting interaction.

The example below shows:

• Column 1 - default sorting
• Column 2 - ascending sorting only
• Column 3 - descending sorting, followed by ascending and then ascending again
• Column 4 - descending sorting only
• Column 5 - default sorting

It's worth noting that I don't have a good use case for when you might what to use the complex behaviour that is possible with this, but it is there should you want to use it!

Live example

Initialisation code

$(document).ready(function() {
	$('#example').dataTable( {
		"aoColumns": [
			null,
			{ "asSorting": [ "asc" ] },
			{ "asSorting": [ "desc", "asc", "asc" ] },
			{ "asSorting": [ "desc" ] },
			null
		]
	} );
} );

Other examples

Basic initialisation

• Zero configuration
• Feature enablement
• Sorting data
• Multi-column sorting
• Multiple tables
• Hidden columns
• DOM positioning
• State saving
• Alternative pagination styles
• Scrolling: Horizontal / Vertical / Both / Themed
• Change language information (internationalisation)
• ThemeRoller themes (Smoothness)

Advanced initialisation

• Events (pre initialisation)
• Events (post initialisation)
• Column rendering
• Sorting without HTML tags
• Multiple table controls (sDom)
• Defining length menu options
• Custom toolbar (element) around table
• Row highlighting with CSS
• Column grouping through col/row spans
• Row grouping
• Row callback
• Footer callback
• Change language information from a file (internationalisation)

Data sources

• DOM
• Javascript array
• Ajax source
• Server side processing

Server-side processing

• Obtain server-side data
• Add extra HTTP variables
• Use HTTP POST
• Custom column ordering (in callback data)
• Pipelining data (reduce Ajax calls for paging)
• Show and hide details about a particular record
• User selectable rows (multiple rows)

API

• Dynamically add a new row
• Individual column filtering (using "input" elements)
• Individual column filtering (using "select" elements)
• Highlight rows and columns
• Show and hide details about a particular record
• User selectable rows (multiple rows)
• User selectable rows (single row) and delete rows
• Editable rows (with jEditable)
• Submit form with elements in table
• Index column (static number column)
• Show and hide columns dynamically
• API function use in initialisation object (callback)
• DataTables scrolling and tabs
• Regular expression filtering

Plug-ins

• Add custom API functions
• Sorting and type detection
• Custom pagination controls
• Range filtering / custom filtering
• Live DOM sorting
• Automatic HTML type detection

Please refer to the DataTables documentation for full information about its API properties and methods.