Preamble

Filtering a table is one of the most common user interactions with a DataTables table, and DataTables provides a number of methods for you to control this interaction. There is a global filter, and a filter for each individual column. The global filter acts on each column.

Each filter (global or column) can be marked as a regular expression (allowing you to create very complex interactions) and as a smart filter or not. When smart filtering is enabled on a particular filter, DataTables will modify the user input string to a complex regular expression which can make filtering more intuitive.

This example allows you to "play" with the various filtering options that DataTables provides.

Live example

Target	Filter text	Treat as regex	Use smart filter
Global filtering
Column 1
Column 2
Column 3
Column 4
Column 5

Initialisation code

function fnFilterGlobal ()
{
	$('#example').dataTable().fnFilter( 
		$("#global_filter").val(),
		null, 
		$("#global_regex")[0].checked, 
		$("#global_smart")[0].checked
	);
}

function fnFilterColumn ( i )
{
	$('#example').dataTable().fnFilter( 
		$("#col"+(i+1)+"_filter").val(),
		i, 
		$("#col"+(i+1)+"_regex")[0].checked, 
		$("#col"+(i+1)+"_smart")[0].checked
	);
}

$(document).ready(function() {
	$('#example').dataTable();
	
	$("#global_filter").keyup( fnFilterGlobal );
	$("#global_regex").click( fnFilterGlobal );
	$("#global_smart").click( fnFilterGlobal );
	
	$("#col1_filter").keyup( function() { fnFilterColumn( 0 ); } );
	$("#col1_regex").click(  function() { fnFilterColumn( 0 ); } );
	$("#col1_smart").click(  function() { fnFilterColumn( 0 ); } );
	
	// ... etc for the other four columns
} );

Other examples