columns.orderable

Enable or disable ordering on this column.

Description

Using this parameter, you can remove the end user's ability to order upon a column. This might be useful for generated content columns, for example if you have 'Edit' or 'Delete' buttons in the table.

Note that this option only affects the end user's ability to order a column. Developers are still able to order a column using the order option at initialisation time or the order() method if required. In such cases, as of DataTables 2, the icon for the column ordering in the header will be shown, but the end user cannot click on it to trigger ordering.

DataTables 2 introduced improved support for complex headers (multiple rows and cells with colspan and rowspan). This option is still applicable in such cases, but it doesn't offer the fine grained control that you might wish to have to determine which cells will have ordering listeners and ordering icons.

To make that fine grained control available, DataTables will look for a data-dt-order attribute on the th/td cells in the table header. The value of this attribute (if present, it is entirely optional) controls the ordering listeners and icons:

• data-dt-order="disable" - Ordering listeners will not be attached to these cells, nor will ordering status icons be shown.
• data-dt-order="icon-only" - Ordering listeners will not be attached to these cells, but the ordering status icons will be shown.

If not defined, the cell will have an ordering listener attached and status icons shown (unless disabled with the columns.orderable option detailed above).

The data-dt-order option can be applied to a tr element in the table header, as well as the individual cells. If applied to the tr the configuration given will cascade down to all cells in that row.

The data-dt-order property is the only option that DataTables has which cannot be set via Javascript and is read from the DOM (you could use Javascript to add the attributes before table initialisation if you require). In future, we may offer the ability to construct a complex header via the initialisation options, which would also address this.

Type

This option can be given in the following type(s):

• boolean

Default

• Value: true

Examples

new DataTable('#myTable', {
	columnDefs: [{ orderable: false, targets: 0 }],
	order: [[1, 'asc']]
});

new DataTable('#myTable', {
	columnDefs: [{ orderable: false, targets: 0 }]
});

new DataTable('#myTable', {
	columns: [{ orderable: false }, null, null, null, null]
});

Related

The following options are directly related and may also be useful in your application development.