DataTables example Fuzzy Searching

Fuzzy searching is used in search engines and databases to perform searches that will match results that are not necessarily exactly the same as the search term. This allows spelling mistakes and typos to be accounted for. It also allows small changes in dialect not to affect search results. A commonly used example is for surname searching. "Smith" and "Smythe" are pronounced the same way, but using conventional searching typing "Smith" would not return "Smythe".

This plug-in adds fuzzy search functionality to datatables. It does this through a combination of exact matching and the damerau-levenshtein algorithm. There are four initialisation options that are associated with this plugin.

  • fuzzySearch.toggleSmart allows the searching to be changed from exact matching to fuzzy searching.
  • fuzzySearch.rankColumn allows the % match to be set in a column within the datatable. Some examples of use cases could be to display the value to the user. or to hide the column and order based on it - as a search engine would.
  • fuzzySearch.threshold allows the value of similarity that is required from the damerau-levenshtein function to display the row to be changed.
  • fuzzySearch.returnSearch allows the option for searching to only occur when the enter key is pressed.
Name Position Office Age Start date Salary Similarity
Tiger Nixon System Architect Edinburgh 61 2011/04/25 $320,800
Garrett Winters Accountant Tokyo 63 2011/07/25 $170,750
Ashton Cox Junior Technical Author San Francisco 66 2009/01/12 $86,000
Cedric Kelly Senior Javascript Developer Edinburgh 22 2012/03/29 $433,060
Airi Satou Accountant Tokyo 33 2008/11/28 $162,700
Brielle Williamson Integration Specialist New York 61 2012/12/02 $372,000
Herrod Chandler Sales Assistant San Francisco 59 2012/08/06 $137,500
Rhona Davidson Integration Specialist Tokyo 55 2010/10/14 $327,900
Colleen Hurst Javascript Developer San Francisco 39 2009/09/15 $205,500
Sonya Frost Software Engineer Edinburgh 23 2008/12/13 $103,600
Jena Gaines Office Manager London 30 2008/12/19 $90,560
Quinn Flynn Support Lead Edinburgh 22 2013/03/03 $342,000
Charde Marshall Regional Director San Francisco 36 2008/10/16 $470,600
Haley Kennedy Senior Marketing Designer London 43 2012/12/18 $313,500
Tatyana Fitzpatrick Regional Director London 19 2010/03/17 $385,750
Michael Silva Marketing Designer London 66 2012/11/27 $198,500
Paul Byrd Chief Financial Officer (CFO) New York 64 2010/06/09 $725,000
Gloria Little Systems Administrator New York 59 2009/04/10 $237,500
Bradley Greer Software Engineer London 41 2012/10/13 $132,000
Dai Rios Personnel Lead Edinburgh 35 2012/09/26 $217,500
Jenette Caldwell Development Lead New York 30 2011/09/03 $345,000
Yuri Berry Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) New York 40 2009/06/25 $675,000
Caesar Vance Pre-Sales Support New York 21 2011/12/12 $106,450
Doris Wilder Sales Assistant Sydney 23 2010/09/20 $85,600
Angelica Ramos Chief Executive Officer (CEO) London 47 2009/10/09 $1,200,000
Gavin Joyce Developer Edinburgh 42 2010/12/22 $92,575
Jennifer Chang Regional Director Singapore 28 2010/11/14 $357,650
Brenden Wagner Software Engineer San Francisco 28 2011/06/07 $206,850
Fiona Green Chief Operating Officer (COO) San Francisco 48 2010/03/11 $850,000
Shou Itou Regional Marketing Tokyo 20 2011/08/14 $163,000
Michelle House Integration Specialist Sydney 37 2011/06/02 $95,400
Suki Burks Developer London 53 2009/10/22 $114,500
Prescott Bartlett Technical Author London 27 2011/05/07 $145,000
Gavin Cortez Team Leader San Francisco 22 2008/10/26 $235,500
Martena Mccray Post-Sales support Edinburgh 46 2011/03/09 $324,050
Unity Butler Marketing Designer San Francisco 47 2009/12/09 $85,675
Howard Hatfield Office Manager San Francisco 51 2008/12/16 $164,500
Hope Fuentes Secretary San Francisco 41 2010/02/12 $109,850
Vivian Harrell Financial Controller San Francisco 62 2009/02/14 $452,500
Timothy Mooney Office Manager London 37 2008/12/11 $136,200
Jackson Bradshaw Director New York 65 2008/09/26 $645,750
Olivia Liang Support Engineer Singapore 64 2011/02/03 $234,500
Bruno Nash Software Engineer London 38 2011/05/03 $163,500
Sakura Yamamoto Support Engineer Tokyo 37 2009/08/19 $139,575
Thor Walton Developer New York 61 2013/08/11 $98,540
Finn Camacho Support Engineer San Francisco 47 2009/07/07 $87,500
Serge Baldwin Data Coordinator Singapore 64 2012/04/09 $138,575
Zenaida Frank Software Engineer New York 63 2010/01/04 $125,250
Zorita Serrano Software Engineer San Francisco 56 2012/06/01 $115,000
Jennifer Acosta Junior Javascript Developer Edinburgh 43 2013/02/01 $75,650
Cara Stevens Sales Assistant New York 46 2011/12/06 $145,600
Hermione Butler Regional Director London 47 2011/03/21 $356,250
Lael Greer Systems Administrator London 21 2009/02/27 $103,500
Jonas Alexander Developer San Francisco 30 2010/07/14 $86,500
Shad Decker Regional Director Edinburgh 51 2008/11/13 $183,000
Michael Bruce Javascript Developer Singapore 29 2011/06/27 $183,000
Donna Snider Customer Support New York 27 2011/01/25 $112,000
Name Position Office Age Start date Salary Similarity

The Javascript shown below is used to initialise the table shown in this example:

$(document).ready(function() { $(document).ready(function() { var table = $('#example').DataTable({ fuzzySearch: { rankColumn: 6 } }); } ); } );