improvement to num-html

bwlang

Here's a version of num-html that can deal with blanks.

I've just added a bit of isNaN to the return statements.

[code]
//sets up numeric sorting of links
jQuery.fn.dataTableExt.oSort['num-html-asc'] = function(a,b) {
var x = a.replace( /<.*?>/g, "" );
var y = b.replace( /<.*?>/g, "" );
x = parseFloat( x );
y = parseFloat( y );
return ((x < y || isNaN(y) ) ? -1 : ((x > y || isNaN(x)) ? 1 : 0));
};

jQuery.fn.dataTableExt.oSort['num-html-desc'] = function(a,b) {
var x = a.replace( /<.*?>/g, "" );
var y = b.replace( /<.*?>/g, "" );
x = parseFloat( x );
y = parseFloat( y );
return ((x < y || isNaN(x)) ? 1 : ((x > y || isNaN(y) ) ? -1 : 0));
};
[/code]

allan

Sounds like a fair improvement - since its possible to have DataTables try and do numeric sorting on non-numeric data. However, might it be an idea to do the isNaN check before doing the numeric comparison (x

bwlang

I'm not sure which is faster... this does work for me.
(see http://polbase.neb.com/polymerases )
I did explore using Infinity if one or the other was NaN, but that was cumbersome.

allan

I was meaning something like this:

[code]
//sets up numeric sorting of links
jQuery.fn.dataTableExt.oSort['num-html-asc'] = function(a,b) {
var x = a.replace( /<.*?>/g, "" );
var y = b.replace( /<.*?>/g, "" );
x = parseFloat( x );
if ( isNaN( x ) ) { x = -1; };
y = parseFloat( y );
if ( isNaN( y ) ) { y = -1; };
return ((x < y) ? -1 : ((x > y) ? 1 : 0));
};

jQuery.fn.dataTableExt.oSort['num-html-desc'] = function(a,b) {
var x = a.replace( /<.*?>/g, "" );
var y = b.replace( /<.*?>/g, "" );
x = parseFloat( x );
if ( isNaN( x ) ) { x = -1; };
y = parseFloat( y );
if ( isNaN( y ) ) { y = -1; };
return ((x < y) ? 1 : ((x > y) ? -1 : 0));
};
[/code]
This way you know for sure that you've got a number to do the numeric comparison, before trying that comparison. What do you think?

Allan

bwlang

Yours is cleaner, but it's a different logice.

My logic says "sort numerics to the top, then ascending or descending)"
Yours says "sort non-numeric to the top or the bottom depending on sort order".

I think both are reasonable, but i suspect people don't want to look at blanks so I just put them at the end of the list, this means that the logic has to be a bit more complicated though (or i don't see the simplification).

Jothe

adding this condition - if ( isNaN( y ) ) { y = -1; }; - is causing Alerts to popup with a message "NaN" whenever the js function is invoked having this condition. Why is this happening??