DataTables.Order

DataTables ordering object.

Description

Ordering in DataTables can be set with order or the order() method. Each can accept various forms of input, and selecting which is easiest for you to use will depend upon the configuration of your DataTable.

Using Typescript definitions, the ordering type is defined as:

interface OrderIdx {
    idx: number;
    dir: 'asc' | 'desc';
}

interface OrderName {
    name: string;
    dir: 'asc' | 'desc';
}

type OrderArray = [number, 'asc' | 'desc'];

type OrderCombined = OrderIdx | OrderName | OrderArray;

type Order = OrderCombined | OrderCombined[];

Properties

Object - index based

In this case the ordering is defined as an object which has idx (column index) and dir (direction) properties to define which column the table should order on. For example:

{
    idx: 1,
    dir: 'asc'
}

Object - name based

The name based ordering is the same as index based, but the column name defined by columns.name is used to identify columns. This can be particularly useful if you have a large number of columns or they can change based on user input.

{
    name: 'first_name',
    dir: 'desc'
}

Single dimension array (tuple)

In this form an array of two elements is used to define the ordering to apply to the table. The first element in the array is the column index and the second is the direction. The following matches the Object - index based example, but with the array syntax:

[
    1,
    'asc'
]

Two dimensional array

Multi-column ordering is defined by providing an array of the above options. You can mix types if you like (although this is relatively unusual, it can be a bit confusing!):

[
    { idx: 1, 'asc' },
    { idx: 2, 'desc' }
]

Return types

Please note that the order() method will always return an array of single dimension arrays (tuples) which contain the column index and direction. This is the representation that DataTables uses internally and the other forms are converted to the tuple array when DataTables performs ordering operations.