Question

Seems like it should be easy but…

Does anyone know how to return the current rows from a filtered dataTable? The oTable.fnGetNodes() method returns all rows, where I just want the filtered (visible, but including paginated) ones

// filter on division
var oTable = $('#summary-table').dataTable();
oTable.fnFilter(division_text, 2, true);

// Get the nodes from the table  
var nNodes = oTable.fnGetNodes(); // <-- still retrieves original list of rows

I checked: Retrieving visible data from Datatables but not much help there.

Answer 1

Figured out the answer, if anyone ever needs this:

First, using this datatables extension to get all the hidden rows:

$.fn.dataTableExt.oApi.fnGetHiddenTrNodes = function (oSettings, arg1, arg2) {

/* Note the use of a DataTables 'private' function thought the 'oApi' object */

var anNodes = this.oApi._fnGetTrNodes(oSettings);
var anDisplay = $('tbody tr', oSettings.nTable);

/* Remove nodes which are being displayed */
for (var i = 0; i < anDisplay.length; i++) {
    var iIndex = jQuery.inArray(anDisplay[i], anNodes);

    if (iIndex != -1) {
        anNodes.splice(iIndex, 1);
    }
}

/* Fire back the array to the caller */
return anNodes;
}

Then filter out the hidden nodes to get only visible nodes:

 var rows = oTable.fnGetNodes(); // get all nodes            
 var rows_hidden = oTable.fnGetHiddenTrNodes(); // get all hidden nodes

 var result = [], found;

 // remove hidden nodes from all nodes
 for (var i = 0; i < rows.length; i++) {
  found = false;
    for (var j = 0; j < rows_hidden.length; j++) {
      if (rows[i] == rows_hidden[j]) {
        found = true;
          break;
                }
            }
            if (!found) {
                result.push(rows[i]); 
            }
    }