In rCharts issue #458, the question asked was
How do I sort with scientific notation as shown in Datatables scientific sorting plugin?
Here is a sample set of code how we can accomplish this using a modified iris dataset. To see it, go to the rCharts viewer or play with it live.
iris_sc <- iris
#randomly make these numbers exponentially large to be able to visually verify result
iris_sc[,-5] <- format(iris_sc[,-5]*10^runif(nrow(iris),1,10),scientific=T)
dt <- dTable(
iris_sc[sample(1:nrow(iris_sc),50),]
)
#add the scientific sort from http://next.datatables.net/plug-ins/sorting/scientific
#easier to add in script than to add to jshead
dt$setTemplate(chartDiv = sprintf('%s
<script>
%s
</script>
',
dt$templates$chartDiv,
'jQuery.extend( jQuery.fn.dataTableExt.oSort, {
"scientific-pre": function ( a ) {
return parseFloat(a);
},
"scientific-asc": function ( a, b ) {
return ((a < b) ? -1 : ((a > b) ? 1 : 0));
},
"scientific-desc": function ( a, b ) {
return ((a < b) ? 1 : ((a > b) ? -1 : 0));
}
} );
'
))
#hack with lapply; I think there is a better way to do
#but this sets type to scientific for all columns
#except the last which is species
dt$params$table$aoColumns[-ncol(iris_sc)] <- lapply(
dt$params$table$aoColumns[-ncol(iris_sc)],
function(x){
x$sType = "scientific"
return(x)
}
)
dt