Alt string

Use the alt attribute of an image tag as the data to sort upon.

• Author: Jumpy

Sort on the 'alt' tag of images in a column. This is particularly useful if you have a column of images (ticks and crosses for example) and you want to control the sorting using the alt tag.

Plug-in code

jQuery.extend( jQuery.fn.dataTableExt.oSort, {
    "alt-string-pre": function ( a ) {
        return a.match(/alt="(.*?)"/)[1].toLowerCase();
    },

    "alt-string-asc": function( a, b ) {
        return ((a < b) ? -1 : ((a > b) ? 1 : 0));
    },

    "alt-string-desc": function(a,b) {
        return ((a < b) ? 1 : ((a > b) ? -1 : 0));
    }
} );

CDN

This plug-in is available on the DataTables CDN:

Note that if you are using multiple plug-ins, it is beneficial in terms of performance to combine the plug-ins into a single file and host it on your own server, rather than making multiple requests to the DataTables CDN.

Version control

If you have any ideas for how this plug-in can be improved, or spot anything that is in error, it is available on GitHub and pull requests are very welcome!

• This plug-in: alt-string.js
• Full DataTables plug-ins repository: DataTables/Plugins

Example

$('#example').dataTable( {
     columnDefs: [
       { type: 'alt-string', targets: 0 }
     ]
  } );