Question

I want that if the user enters numeric data it should be left aligned and if he enters other datatype then it should be left aligned. Text align I can give the css property that text-align:right. How can I find the datatype when the user enters data? I am using the jquery datatables.

Answer 1

This is not a rails concern. If you want to set the css property based on the nature of content in the cell, I would strongly advise a jQuery / Javascript solution.

You could do something like this:

$(document).ready(function(){
    $("td").each(function() {
       if (parseInt($(this).text()) > 1) {
            $(this).css("text-align", "right");
        }
    });
});

For a more complicated solution you could implement your own Jquery Filter, something like:

$.extend($.expr[":"], {
  expr: (function() {
    var op = {
      '=': function(n1, n2) { return n1 == n2; },
      '!=': function(n1, n2) { return n1 != n2; },
      '>': function(n1, n2) { return n1 > n2; },
      '>=': function(n1, n2) { return n1 >= n2; },
      '<': function(n1, n2) { return n1 < n2; },
      '<=': function(n1, n2) { return n1 <= n2; }
    };
    var ops = [];
    for (p in op) {
      ops.push(p);
    }
    var r = new RegExp("^\\s*(" + ops.join("|") + ")\\s*(-?\\d+(?:\\.\\d+)?)\\s*$");
    return function(elem, i, match) {
      var m = r.exec(match[3]);
      return m && op[m[1]](parseFloat($(elem).text()), parseFloat(m[2]));
    };
  })()
});

Which would allow you to filter values based on numeric constraints like:

$("td:expr(>5)").css("text-align", "right");