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Modifying the code

</tr>

<tr>

<td>Spring Budget.xls</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>Job Description - Web Designer.doc</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>Saved Web Page.pdf</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>Chapter 1.doc</td>

</tr>

</tbody>

</table>

However, this new attribute alone doesn’t solve the problem. You must also update the JavaScript code

to take advantage of the

value

attribute.

Modifying the code

This final modification to the code determines whether to get the sortable value from the

<td/>

element’s

text or from the

value

attribute. Here’s the updated code:

function generateCompareTRs(iCol, sDataType) {

return function compareTRs(oTR1, oTR2) {

var vValue1, vValue2;

if (oTR1.cells[iCol].getAttribute(“value”)) {

vValue1 = convert(oTR1.cells[iCol].getAttribute(“value”),

sDataType);

vValue2 = convert(oTR2.cells[iCol].getAttribute(“value”),

sDataType);

} else {

vValue1 = convert(oTR1.cells[iCol].firstChild.nodeValue,

sDataType);

vValue2 = convert(oTR2.cells[iCol].firstChild.nodeValue,

sDataType);

}

As mentioned earlier in the book, adding custom attributes to HTML tags is not

allowed using the strict representation of XHTML. You may alternately want to pro-

vide the value for a table cell using the

title

attribute (if the value will make sense

to the user) or by providing an invisible

<div/>

inside the table cell that contains

the value.

383

Sorting Tables

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