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. Further note that because the input elements are outside of the control of DataTables, with state saving enabled, stored values are not automatically restored - please see this post in the forum for how to do this.

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 asInitVals = new Array();

$(document).ready(function() {
	var 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
• 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.