jQuery table sort

Question

I have a very simple HTML table with 4 columns:

Facility Name, Phone #, City, Specialty

I want the user to be able to sort by Faci

Answer 1

We just started using this slick tool: https://plugins.jquery.com/tablesorter/

There is a video on its use at: http://www.highoncoding.com/Articles/695_Sorting_GridView_Using_JQuery_TableSorter_Plug_in.aspx

    $('#tableRoster').tablesorter({
        headers: {
            0: { sorter: false },
            4: { sorter: false }
        }
    });

With a simple table

<table id="tableRoster">
        <thead> 
                  <tr>
                    <th><input type="checkbox" class="rCheckBox" value="all" id="rAll" ></th>
                    <th>User</th>
                    <th>Verified</th>
                    <th>Recently Accessed</th>
                    <th>&nbsp;</th>
                  </tr>
        </thead>

Answer 2

Here's a chart that may be helpful deciding which to use: http://blog.sematext.com/2011/09/19/top-javascript-dynamic-table-libraries/

Answer 3

I ended up using Nick's answer (the most popular but not accepted) https://stackoverflow.com/a/19947532/5271220

and combined it with the https://stackoverflow.com/a/16819442/5271220 but didn't want to add icons or fontawesome to the project. The CSS styles for sort-column-asc/desc I did color, padding, rounded border.

I also modified it to go by class rather than by any so we could control which ones are sortable. This could also come in handy later if there are two tables although more modifications would need to be done for that.

body:

 html += "<thead>\n";
    html += "<th></th>\n";
    html += "<th class=\"sort-header\">Name <span></span></i></th>\n";
    html += "<th class=\"sort-header\">Status <span></span></th>\n";
    html += "<th class=\"sort-header\">Comments <span></span></th>\n";
    html += "<th class=\"sort-header\">Location <span></span></th>\n";
    html += "<th nowrap class=\"sort-header\">Est. return <span></span></th>\n";
    html += "</thead>\n";
    html += "<tbody>\n"; ...

... further down the body

$("body").on("click", ".sort-header", function (e) {
    var table = $(this).parents('table').eq(0)
    var rows = table.find('tr:gt(0)').toArray().sort(comparer($(this).index()))
    this.asc = !this.asc
    if (!this.asc) { rows = rows.reverse() }
    for (var i = 0; i < rows.length; i++) { table.append(rows[i]) }

    setIcon(e.target, this.asc);
});

functions:

function comparer(index) {
        return function (a, b) {
            var valA = getCellValue(a, index), valB = getCellValue(b, index)
            return $.isNumeric(valA) && $.isNumeric(valB) ? valA - valB : valA.toString().localeCompare(valB)
        }
    }

    function getCellValue(row, index) {
        return $(row).children('td').eq(index).text()
    }

    function setIcon(element, inverse) {

        var iconSpan = $(element).find('span');

        if (inverse == true) {
            $(iconSpan).removeClass();
            $(iconSpan).addClass('sort-column-asc');
            $(iconSpan)[0].innerHTML = " &#8593 " // arrow up
        } else {
            $(iconSpan).removeClass();
            $(iconSpan).addClass('sort-column-desc');
            $(iconSpan)[0].innerHTML = " &#8595 " // arrow down 
        }

        $(element).siblings().find('span').each(function (i, obj) {
            $(obj).removeClass();
            obj.innerHTML = "";
        });
    }