Ordering a Rails DataTable column by another value - ruby-on-rails

Question

I am building a helpdesk application. I have a model called TicketDetail, with a table which uses datatables to get its data via JSON. This is in order to periodically recalculate the time a ticket has been open. The time taken is formatted by a simple helper so it's in the format "dd:hh:mm", but it should be sorted by the time (stored as a decimal) multiplied by a weighting. Here's the datatables definition
var table = $('#ticket_details').DataTable({
order: [[ 8, "desc" ], [ 9, "desc" ], [ 2, "asc" ]],
stateSave: true,
deferRender: true,
ajax: $('#ticket_details').data('source'),
"columns": [
{ "data": "reference_number" },
{ "data": "location" },
{ "data": "title" },
{ "data": "parent", className: "hidden-md hidden-sm hidden-xs" },
{ "data": { _:"time_display.time", sort: "time_display.decimal_time"}},
{ "data": "created_by", className: "hidden-md hidden-sm hidden-xs" }
]
} );
setInterval( function () {
table.ajax.reload( null, false ); }, 60000 );
Here's a simplified sample record, where the ticket has been open 3 days and 6 hours, with a weighting of x2 (i.e. 3.25 * 2 = 6.5:
{
data: [
{
id: 140,
parent: null,
title: "[",
location: "Bond St",
ticket_sla: "16 Hours",
reference_number: "1606210001",
ticket_sla_weighting: 2,
time_display: {
time: "<span class = "label label-danger">03:06:00</span>",
decimal_time: 6.5
}
]
}
The problem is that the datatable sorts correctly if I display the decimal_time, but as soon as I put the formatted time in the class, it sorts simply by the number of days, immediately to the left of the colon. (So 03:06:00 and 03:18:00 would not get sorted properly).

Answer 1

For Date/Time sorting in DataTable You need to use it's Sorting plug-ins
For Example,
You need to include this js files :
//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/moment.js/2.8.4/moment.min.js
//cdn.datatables.net/plug-ins/1.10.12/sorting/datetime-moment.js
and then, In your jQuery use this as
$.fn.dataTable.moment( 'HH:mm MMM D, YY' ); // Pass your date time format as param
For Deeper reference please check :
Sorting Plugins
Ultimate date / time sorting plugin