Custom Parser for Tablesorter plugin for custom date format

Question

I need to adapt the jQuery Tablesorter plugin to sort dates in a very simple format which will consist of the three letter month and the 4 digit date (e.g. May 2010, Jan 2011, Mar 2012, etc). I have'nt been able to wrap my head around how to do it. I tried adapting the parser found here: http://beausmith.com/blog/custom-date-sorting-for-jquery-tablesorter-plugin/. But I am lost with reg ex. For ease in helping, I will post his code below. ``` // TableSort parser for date format: Jan 6, 1978 $.tablesorter.addParser({ id: 'monthDayYear', is: function(s) { return false; }, format: function(s) { var date = s.match(/^(\w{3})[ ](\d{1,2}),[ ](\d{4})$/); var m = monthNames[date[1]]; var d = String(date[2]); if (d.length == 1) {d = "0" + d;} var y = date[3]; return '' + y + m + d; }, type: 'numeric' }); var monthNames = {}; monthNames["Jan"] = "01"; monthNames["Feb"] = "02"; monthNames["Mar"] = "03"; monthNames["Apr"] = "04"; monthNames["May"] = "05"; monthNames["Jun"] = "06"; monthNames["Jul"…

Accepted Answer

I've modified @SamTyson's answer:

There are three things that changed:

- The format function needs to be able to handle empty table cells.

- The format function must return a string or number

- The parser type can only be "Numeric" or "Text".

So, I ended up with this parser code and this demo.

```
$.tablesorter.addParser({
    id: 'monthYear',
    is: function(s) {
        return false;
    },
    format: function(s) {
        // remove extra spacing
        s = $.trim(s.replace(/\s+/g, ' '));
        // process date
        var date = s.match(/^(\w{3})[ ](\d{4})$/),
            m = date ? date[1] + ' 1 ' || '' : '',
            y = date && date[2] ? date[2] || '' : '';
        return new Date(m + y).getTime() || '';
    },
    type: 'Numeric'
});

$('table').tablesorter({
    headers: {
        0: {
            sorter: 'monthYear'
        }
    }
});
```

Update: Added a line to trim out extra spaces.

Custom Parser for Tablesorter plugin for custom date format

Solution

Problem