Question

I’d like to make a small form to perform a select filter on the following table:

<table id="example">
    <thead>
        <tr>
            <th>Name</th>
            <th>Surname</th>
        </tr>
    </thead>
    <tbody>
        <tr>
            <td>Michael</td>
            <td>Jordan</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>Michael</td>
            <td>Jackson</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>Bruno</td>
            <td>Mars</td>
        </tr>
    </tfoot>
</table>

How can I do it?

It should be something similar to this example http://www.datatables.net/release-datatables/examples/api/multi_filter_select.html but both of the fields should NOT be in the foot of the table but in another part of the page.

Answer 1

Here is one solution. It generates select elements automatically.

$("#example > thead th").each(function(i) {
    $("<select />").attr("data-index", i).html($("<option />")).change(function() {
        $("#example > tbody > tr").show().filter(function() {
            var comb = [], children = $(this).children();
            children.each(function(i) {
                var value = $("select[data-index='" + i + "']").val();
                if (value == $(this).text() || value == "") comb.push(1);
            });
            return comb.length != children.length;
        }).hide();
    }).appendTo("body");
});
$("#example > tbody tr").each(function() {
    $(this).children().each(function(i) {
        var that = $(this);
        var select = $("select[data-index='" + i + "']");
        if (!select.children().filter(function() {
            return $(this).text() == that.text();
        }).length) {
            select.append($("<option />").text($(this).text()));
        }
    });
});​

DEMO: http://jsfiddle.net/xXj5F/