Adding plugin for natural time delta sorting

sorting/natural-time-delta.js

@@ -0,0 +1,58 @@
+/**
+* Created by Shodhan Save on Jan 23, 2018.
+*/
+
+/**
+* This plug-in allows sorting of human readable time delta, viz.,
+* "1 week", "2 weeks 3 days", "4 weeks 5 days 6hours", etc.
+* Curently this plugin supports time range from seconds to weeks
+*
+*  @name Natural Time Delta
+*  @summary Sort human readable time delta
+*
+*  @example
+*    $("#example").DataTable({
+*       columnDefs: [
+*         { "type": "natural-time-delta", "targets": 2 }
+*       ]
+*    });
+*/
+
+jQuery.extend(jQuery.fn.dataTableExt.oSort,{
+    "natural-time-delta-pre" : function(data){
+        var result = 0;
+        var pattern = /(\d+\s*weeks?\s*)?(\d+\s*days?\s*)?(\d+\s*hours?\s*)?(\d+\s*minutes?)?(\d+\s*seconds?)?/i
+        var format_time_element = function(el, splitter, mul){
+            if (el === undefined){
+                return 0;
+            }
+            return parseFloat(el.split(splitter)[0].trim()) * mul;
+        };
+
+        var matches = data.match(pattern);
+        matches.reverse();
+
+        var time_elements = [
+            {"splitter" : "s",  "name" : "second",  "mul" : 1},
+            {"splitter" : "m",  "name" : "minute",  "mul" : 1 * 60},
+            {"splitter" : "h",  "name" : "hour",    "mul" : 1 * 60 * 60},
+            {"splitter" : "d",  "name" : "day",     "mul" : 1 * 60 * 60 * 24},
+            {"splitter" : "w",  "name" : "week",    "mul" : 1 * 60 * 60 * 24 * 7},
+        ];
+
+        time_elements.forEach(function(el, i){
+            var val = format_time_element(matches[i], el["splitter"], el["mul"]);
+            result += val;
+        });
+
+        return result || -1;
+    },
+
+    "natural-time-delta-asc" : function (a, b) {
+        return ((a < b) ? -1 : ((a > b) ? 1 : 0));
+    },
+
+    "natural-time-delta-desc" : function (a, b) {
+        return ((a < b) ? 1 : ((a > b) ? -1 : 0));
+    }
+});