Here is the best way to hide empty columns on and after datatables initialization

elpaisa

I lost two days searching for a good solution on how to hide empty columns in jQuery dataTables via javascript, so i came to my own solution coding a new plugin, i think this will help others do it very quickly, if you find this plugin usefull feel free to extend it and post your code to help others improve their dataTables

[code]
$.fn.dataTableExt.oApi.fnHideEmptyColumns = function ( oSettings, tableObject )
{
/**
* This plugin hides the columns that are empty.
* If you are using datatable inside jquery tabs
* you have to add manually this piece of code
* in the tabs initialization
* $("#mytable").datatables().fnAdjustColumnSizing();
* where #mytable is the selector of table
* object pointing to this plugin.
* This plugin can be invoked from
* fnInitComplete callback.
* @author John Diaz
* @version 1.0
* @date 06/28/2013
*/
var selector = tableObject.selector;
var columnsToHide = [];

$(selector).find('th').each(function(i) {

var columnIndex = $(this).index();
var rows = $(this).parents('table').find('tr td:nth-child(' + (i + 1) + ')'); //Find all rows of each column
var rowsLength = $(rows).length;
var emptyRows = 0;

rows.each(function(r) {
if (this.innerHTML == '')
emptyRows++;
});

if(emptyRows == rowsLength) {
columnsToHide.push(columnIndex); //If all rows in the colmun are empty, add index to array
}
});
for(var i=0; i< columnsToHide.length; i++) {
tableObject.fnSetColumnVis( columnsToHide[i], false ); //Hide columns by index
}
/**
* The following line doesn't work when the plugin
* is used inside jquery tabs, then you should
* add manually this piece of code inside
* the tabs initialization where ("#myTable") is
* your table id selector
* ej: $("#myTable").dataTable().fnAdjustColumnSizing();
*/

tableObject.fnAdjustColumnSizing();
}
[/code]

Plugin usage:

[code]
"fnInitComplete": function () {
/**
* Go to plugin definition for
* instructions on how to use.
*/
this.fnHideEmptyColumns(this);
}

[/code]

allan

Very good - thank you for sharing with us!

Allan