How to do complex sorting in jQuery tableSorter?

Question

I have a table with the following data:

Cell1        Cell2
Computers     10  
   Dell       5
   IBM        3
   Compaq     2
HDDs          12
   Seagate    7
   Samsung    3
   Test       2
Monitors      18
   Seagate    7
   Samsung    9
   Dell       1

Now If I sort by Cell 2, it destroys the format and puts 18,12,10 etc. Is there a way to preserve the rows within a 'parent' from sorting? For example, if I were to sort by Cell2

Cell1        Cell2
Monitors      18  
   Seagate    7
   Samsung    9
   Dell       1
HDDs          12
   Seagate    7
   Samsung    3
   Test       2
Computers     10
   Dell       5
   IBM        3
   Compaq     2

So the child rows are not sorted at all, but the parents are sorted preserving the order of the children.

Link to the plugin you're asking about. There isn't only one with that name. Worse, one of them has changed domains several times, so you might be using an older version and not even know it. — Su', Feb 18 '11 at 17:03
Using http://tablesorter.com/docs/ EDIT: if you know of a better table sorter, please let me know — Rohit Chopra, Feb 18 '11 at 17:10

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 18 '11 at 17:13

0

you can try this plugin http://p.sohei.org/stuff/jquery/tablegroup/demo/demo.html

answered Feb 18 '11 at 17:13

Vivek Goel

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Unfortunately that plugin doesnt help my cause. Do you know of any other? – Rohit Chopra Feb 18 '11 at 17:28
see this post http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1576908/jquery-table-plugin-with-group-by – Vivek Goel Feb 18 '11 at 17:32

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 18 '11 at 17:58

It's not that hard to sort some elements, given a parent and some elems:

// custom compare function for sorting by numbers
function sortByNumber( a, b ) {
  if ( + a.innerHTML < b.innerHTML ) return -1;
  else if( + a.innerHTML > b.innerHTML ) return 1;
  else return 0;
}

var parent = ...;

// convert to array, to make sorting possible
var items = jQuery.makeArray( elems );
var len   = items.length;

// do the item sorting by their value
items = items.sort( sortByNumber );

// append them back to the parent in order
for ( var i = 0; i < len; i++ ) {
  parent.appendChild( items[i] );
}

Now you can do it in a loop for the subcategories depending on your markup.

How to do complex sorting in jQuery tableSorter?

2 Answers2