Acquiring column data after column is hidden

timothy.ctr.searcy@faa.gov

http://live.datatables.net/tawilawu/2/edit

In the above link I have an example where we are able to toggle the visibility of columns.
In my real-time application, the Datatables is server-side paginated. We may have millions of records, but we are slicing up the data when presenting in browser. We have a requirement to be able to export several thousands of rows into a CSV file based on certain search criterias on columns. For example, export records of all employees in London office.

Because server-side pagination is not bringing in the whole records in browser, I am forming the CSV on server and not using Datatables export options. However, I do need to submit values that were typed in the column search fields to the server. I can obtain the search values when the column is visible. But in case the column was invisible, I have not been able to find the <input> element in the header for that column and thus its value is undefined.

My question is: How can I find the <input> element of the column that was hidden? There are two JQuery cases that I am using to find the input element in the example link:

1. $("#search-"+this.name()).val() which returns undefined if column is hidden
2. $('#example thead tr:eq(1) th:eq(2)').each(function(index, value){
   console.log(value.innerHTML);
   });
   which returns the Age column when Office is hidden.

Thank you.

colin

The easiest way would be to use column().search(), this returns the string that was used to search that column last.

Colin