DataTables example API plug-in methods

The DataTables API is designed to be fully extensible, with custom functions being very easy to add using the $.fn.dataTable.Api.register function. This function takes two arguments; the first being the name of the method to be added and its chaining hierarchy, and the second the function itself.

This example shows how a sum() method can easily be added to the Api so you can get the sum of a column in a single line: table.column().data().sum(). Due to the chaining of the methods, this allows sum() to very easily give the sum for any selected column, and to limit the sum to just the current page, filtered data or all pages. This is done using the options for the column()DT method and the options for its selectors.

For more information about API plug-ins; creating them and their requirements, please refer to the plug-in development documentation.

NamePositionOfficeAgeStart dateSalary
NamePositionOfficeAgeStart dateSalary
Airi Satou Accountant Tokyo 33 2008/11/28 $162,700
Angelica Ramos Chief Executive Officer (CEO) London 47 2009/10/09 $1,200,000
Ashton Cox Junior Technical Author San Francisco 66 2009/01/12 $86,000
Bradley Greer Software Engineer London 41 2012/10/13 $132,000
Brenden Wagner Software Engineer San Francisco 28 2011/06/07 $206,850
Brielle Williamson Integration Specialist New York 61 2012/12/02 $372,000
Bruno Nash Software Engineer London 38 2011/05/03 $163,500
Caesar Vance Pre-Sales Support New York 21 2011/12/12 $106,450
Cara Stevens Sales Assistant New York 46 2011/12/06 $145,600
Cedric Kelly Senior Javascript Developer Edinburgh 22 2012/03/29 $433,060
Showing 1 to 10 of 57 entries
  • Javascript
  • HTML
  • CSS
  • Ajax
  • Server-side script

The Javascript shown below is used to initialise the table shown in this example:

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$.fn.dataTable.Api.register( 'column().data().sum()', function () {
    return this.reduce( function (a, b) {
        var x = parseFloat( a ) || 0;
        var y = parseFloat( b ) || 0;
        return x + y;
    } );
} );
 
/* Init the table and fire off a call to get the hidden nodes. */
$(document).ready(function() {
    var table = $('#example').DataTable();
     
    $('<button>Click to sum age in all rows</button>')
        .prependTo( '#demo' )
        .on( 'click', function () {
            alert( 'Column sum is: '+ table.column( 3 ).data().sum() );
        } );
 
    $('<button>Click to sum age of visible rows</button>')
        .prependTo( '#demo' )
        .on( 'click', function () {
            alert( 'Column sum is: '+ table.column( 3, {page:'current'} ).data().sum() );
        } );
} );

In addition to the above code, the following Javascript library files are loaded for use in this example: