Zero Configuration

DataTables has most features enabled by default, so all you need to do to use it with your own tables is to call the construction function: $().DataTable();.

Searching, ordering and paging goodness will be immediately added to the table, as shown in this example.

Complex Headers (rowspan and colspan)

When using tables to display data, you will often wish to display column information in groups. DataTables fully supports colspan and rowspan in the table's header, assigning the required order listeners to the TH element suitable for that column.

Each column must have one TH cell which is unique to it for the listeners to be added. By default DataTables will use the bottom unique cell for the column to attach the order listener, if more than one cell for a column if found. The orderCellsTop:option option can be used to tell DataTables to use the top cell if you prefer.

The example shown below has two sets of grouped information, grouped by colspan in the header.

State Saving

DataTables has the option of being able to save the state of a table (its paging position, ordering state etc) so that is can be restored when the user reloads a page, or comes back to the page after visiting a sub-page. This state saving ability is enabled by the stateSave option.

The built in state saving method uses the HTML5 localStorage and sessionStorage APIs for efficient storage of the data. Please note that this means that the built in state saving option will not work with IE6/7 as these browsers do not support these APIs. Alternative options of using cookies or saving the state on the server through Ajax can be used through the stateSaveCallback and stateLoadCallback options.

The duration for which the saved state is valid and can be used to restore the table state can be set using the stateDuration initialisation parameter (2 hours by default). This parameter also controls if localStorage (0 or greater) or sessionStorage (-1) is used to store the data.

The example below simply shows state saving enabled in DataTables with the stateSave option.

Scroll - vertical, dynamic height

This example shows a vertically scrolling DataTable that makes use of the CSS3 vh unit in order to dynamically resize the viewport based on the browser window height. The vh unit is effectively a percentage of the browser window height. So the 50vh used in this example is 50% of the window height. The viewport size will update dynamically as the window is resized.

A relatively modern browser is required for vh units to operate correctly. IE9+ supports the vh unit and all other evergreen browsers.