Datatables - Search Box outside datatable

Question

You can use the DataTables api to filter the table. So all you need is your own input field with a keyup event that triggers the filter function to DataTables. With css or jquery you can hide/remove the existing search input field. Or maybe DataTables has a setting to remove/not-include it.

Checkout the Datatables API documentation on this.

Example:

HTML

<input type="text" id="myInputTextField">

JS

oTable = $('#myTable').DataTable();   //pay attention to capital D, which is mandatory to retrieve "api" datatables' object, as @Lionel said
$('#myInputTextField').keyup(function(){
      oTable.search($(this).val()).draw() ;
})

As per @lvkz comment :

if you are using datatable with uppercase d .DataTable() ( this will return a Datatable API object ) use this :

 oTable.search($(this).val()).draw() ;

which is @netbrain answer.

if you are using datatable with lowercase d .dataTable() ( this will return a jquery object ) use this :

 oTable.fnFilter($(this).val());

You can use the sDom option for this.

Default with search input in its own div:

sDom: '<"search-box"r>lftip'

If you use jQuery UI (bjQueryUI set to true):

sDom: '<"search-box"r><"H"lf>t<"F"ip>'

The above will put the search/filtering input element into it's own div with a class named search-box that is outside of the actual table.

Even though it uses its special shorthand syntax it can actually take any HTML you throw at it.

This one helped me for DataTables Version 1.10.4, because its new API

var oTable = $('#myTable').DataTable();    
$('#myInputTextField').keyup(function(){
   oTable.search( $(this).val() ).draw();
})

I had the same problem.

I tried all alternatives posted, but no work, I used a way that is not right but it worked perfectly.

Example search input

<input id="searchInput" type="text"> 

the jquery code

$('#listingData').dataTable({
  responsive: true,
  "bFilter": true // show search input
});
$("#listingData_filter").addClass("hidden"); // hidden search input

$("#searchInput").on("input", function (e) {
   e.preventDefault();
   $('#listingData').DataTable().search($(this).val()).draw();
});