Dynamic Sorting using custom table tags DataTables jQuery

Question

Using the excellent dataTables jQuery plugin, I'm having trouble creating a dynamic array for the "aaSorting" parameter. As per the docs, the "aaSorting" parameter takes an array (or array of arrays) containing the column and the sort order. I need to create a dynamic array for the tables I'm working on, and use the values of the custom table attributes of sortCol and sortOrder which I've added for the tables aaSorting param. I thought I could do this...

var sortCol = $('#mytable').attr('sortCol');
var sortOrder = $('#mytable').attr('sortOrder');
var sortData = [];
if(sortCol != '' && sortOrder != ''){
     sortData[sortCol] = sortOrder;
}

Then in my dataTable initialization, use the sortData var as the value for the "aaSorting" parameter. However, this does not work. Can anyone provide any insight as to how the array must be constructed in order for dataTables to use it for sorting.

var myTableObject = dataTable({
     "oLanguage": "Search",
     "aaSorting": sortData
});

Answer 1

aaSorting is an array of arrays. Each nested array has two elements. The first is the column number, and the second is the order (i.e. asc or desc). You are using a one dimensional array for aaSorting, try [[0, "asc"]]

Updated

var sortCol = $('#mytable').attr('sortCol');
var sortOrder = $('#mytable').attr('sortOrder');
var sortData = [];
if(sortCol != '' && sortOrder != ''){
     sortData.push( [sortCol, sortOrder] );
}

Example

// Sort by 3rd column first, and then 4th column
$(document).ready( function() {
  $('#example').dataTable( {
    "aaSorting": [[2,'asc'], [3,'desc']]
  } );
} );