Question

I am using the jQuery plug-in Datatables, is it possible to change the order of the columns without changing the source data?

Here is an Example of what I have now.

Currently it is LicenseNumber, FirstName, LastName
I would like it to be FirstName, LastName, LicenseNumber

Is there a parameter I can add to the datatable setup?

Answer 1

Not entirely sure I’ve understood the question, but this might be of use:

(1) DataTables has a ColReorder plugin.

http://datatables.net/extensions/colreorder/

In the link above, you can select a column with your mouse and then drag the column to a different position in the table.

In another example of using the ColReorder plugin, you can predefine your
column order, as stated on the datatables site:

http://datatables.net/release-datatables/extensions/ColReorder/examples/predefined.html

ColReorder provides the ability to specify a column ordering which is
not that of the HTML (which typically you will want) through the
parameter oColReorder.aiOrder. This is an array of integers with the
column ordering you want.

---

(2) I believe you could also make use of aoColumnDefs and mDataProp if your data was an array of objects. (also see http://datatables.net/usage/columns)

...
"aoColumnDefs": [
    { "mDataProp": "FirstName", "aTargets": [ 0 ] },
    { "mDataProp": "LastName", "aTargets": [ 1 ] },
    { "mDataProp": "LicenseNumber", "aTargets": [ 2 ] }
],
...