DataTables individual column filtering example

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

Rendering engine Browser Platform(s) Engine version CSS grade
Trident Internet Explorer 4.0 Win 95+ 4 X
Trident Internet Explorer 5.0 Win 95+ 5 C
Trident Internet Explorer 5.5 Win 95+ 5.5 A
Trident Internet Explorer 6 Win 98+ 6 A
Trident Internet Explorer 7 Win XP SP2+ 7 A
Trident AOL browser (AOL desktop) Win XP 6 A
Gecko Firefox 1.0 Win 98+ / OSX.2+ 1.7 A
Gecko Firefox 1.5 Win 98+ / OSX.2+ 1.8 A
Gecko Firefox 2.0 Win 98+ / OSX.2+ 1.8 A
Gecko Firefox 3.0 Win 2k+ / OSX.3+ 1.9 A
Gecko Camino 1.0 OSX.2+ 1.8 A
Gecko Camino 1.5 OSX.3+ 1.8 A
Gecko Netscape 7.2 Win 95+ / Mac OS 8.6-9.2 1.7 A
Gecko Netscape Browser 8 Win 98SE+ 1.7 A
Gecko Netscape Navigator 9 Win 98+ / OSX.2+ 1.8 A
Gecko Mozilla 1.0 Win 95+ / OSX.1+ 1 A
Gecko Mozilla 1.1 Win 95+ / OSX.1+ 1.1 A
Gecko Mozilla 1.2 Win 95+ / OSX.1+ 1.2 A
Gecko Mozilla 1.3 Win 95+ / OSX.1+ 1.3 A
Gecko Mozilla 1.4 Win 95+ / OSX.1+ 1.4 A
Gecko Mozilla 1.5 Win 95+ / OSX.1+ 1.5 A
Gecko Mozilla 1.6 Win 95+ / OSX.1+ 1.6 A
Gecko Mozilla 1.7 Win 98+ / OSX.1+ 1.7 A
Gecko Mozilla 1.8 Win 98+ / OSX.1+ 1.8 A
Gecko Seamonkey 1.1 Win 98+ / OSX.2+ 1.8 A
Gecko Epiphany 2.20 Gnome 1.8 A
Webkit Safari 1.2 OSX.3 125.5 A
Webkit Safari 1.3 OSX.3 312.8 A
Webkit Safari 2.0 OSX.4+ 419.3 A
Webkit Safari 3.0 OSX.4+ 522.1 A
Webkit OmniWeb 5.5 OSX.4+ 420 A
Webkit iPod Touch / iPhone iPod 420.1 A
Webkit S60 S60 413 A
Presto Opera 7.0 Win 95+ / OSX.1+ - A
Presto Opera 7.5 Win 95+ / OSX.2+ - A
Presto Opera 8.0 Win 95+ / OSX.2+ - A
Presto Opera 8.5 Win 95+ / OSX.2+ - A
Presto Opera 9.0 Win 95+ / OSX.3+ - A
Presto Opera 9.2 Win 88+ / OSX.3+ - A
Presto Opera 9.5 Win 88+ / OSX.3+ - A
Presto Opera for Wii Wii - A
Presto Nokia N800 N800 - A
Presto Nintendo DS browser Nintendo DS 8.5 C/A1
KHTML Konqureror 3.1 KDE 3.1 3.1 C
KHTML Konqureror 3.3 KDE 3.3 3.3 A
KHTML Konqureror 3.5 KDE 3.5 3.5 A
Tasman Internet Explorer 4.5 Mac OS 8-9 - X
Tasman Internet Explorer 5.1 Mac OS 7.6-9 1 C
Tasman Internet Explorer 5.2 Mac OS 8-X 1 C
Misc NetFront 3.1 Embedded devices - C
Misc NetFront 3.4 Embedded devices - A
Misc Dillo 0.8 Embedded devices - X
Misc Links Text only - X
Misc Lynx Text only - X
Misc IE Mobile Windows Mobile 6 - C
Misc PSP browser PSP - C
Other browsers All others - - U

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