Hide empty cells in table

Question

I want to hide empty cells in table. Here is my code:

$(function() {
  $(".empty").each(hideCellIfEmpty);
});

function hideCellIfEmpty() {
  var theCell = $(this);
  if (theCell.html().length == 0) {
    hideSoft(theCell);
  }
}

function hideSoft(jQElement) {
  jqElement.css('visibility', 'hidden');
}

table.empty {
  width: 350px;
  border-collapse: collapse;
  empty-cells: hide;
}
td.empty {
  border-style: solid;
  border-width: 1px;
  border-color: blue;
}

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.8.3/jquery.min.js"></script>
<table class="empty">
  <tr>
    <th></th>
    <th>Title one</th>
    <th>Title two</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <th>Row Title</th>
    <td class="empty">value</td>
    <td class="empty">value</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <th>Row Title</th>
    <td class="empty">value</td>
    <td class="empty"></td>
  </tr>
</table>

You can see, empty cell is shown in 2nd row. But I want to hide it. Moreover, I don't want to use border-collapse:separate. Is this possible to hide the empty cell using border-collapse:collapse? I also want to know why this is showing empty cells.

P.S. Using border-collapse: separate is working and does not show empty cells.

$(function() {
  $(".empty").each(hideCellIfEmpty);
});

function hideCellIfEmpty() {
  var theCell = $(this);
  if (theCell.html().length == 0) {
    hideSoft(theCell);
  }
}

function hideSoft(jQElement) {
  jqElement.css('visibility', 'hidden');
}

table.empty {
  width: 350px;
  border-collapse: separate;
  empty-cells: hide;
}
td.empty {
  border-style: solid;
  border-width: 1px;
  border-color: blue;
}

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.8.3/jquery.min.js"></script>
<table class="empty">
  <tr>
    <th></th>
    <th>Title one</th>
    <th>Title two</th>
    <th>Title three</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <th>Row Title</th>
    <td class="empty">value</td>
    <td class="empty">value</td>
    <td class="empty">value</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <th>Row Title</th>
    <td class="empty">value</td>
    <td class="empty"></td>
    <td class="empty">value</td>
  </tr>
</table>

But this does not answer these questions:

1. Why empty-cells are displayed when border-collapse: collapse is used ?

2. Why empty cell are not displayed when border-collapse: separate is used ?

Answer 1

If your site doesn't require support for IE 8 and under, you could just use the CSS :empty pseudo-class:

td:empty {
  visibility: hidden;
}

table.empty {
  width: 350px;
  border-collapse: collapse;
  empty-cells: hide;
}
td.empty {
  border-style: solid;
  border-width: 1px;
  border-color: blue;
}
td:empty {
  visibility: hidden;
}

<table class="empty">
  <tr>
    <th></th>
    <th>Title one</th>
    <th>Title two</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <th>Row Title</th>
    <td class="empty">value</td>
    <td class="empty">value</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <th>Row Title</th>
    <td class="empty">value</td>
    <td class="empty"></td>
  </tr>
</table>

More about the :empty pseudo-class can be found at https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/:empty

Answer 2

Assuming all cell you want to hide have the class ´.empty()´ I came up with this piece of jQuery:

$(function(){
    $(".empty").each(hideCellIfEmpty);
});

function hideCellIfEmpty(){
    var theCell = $(this);
    if(theCell.html().length == 0){
        theCell.hide();
    }           
}​

aaaaand... it seems to work. :)

However as hide() doesn't preserve space you run into this problem if you try to do a donut shape.
Luckily there is another question discussing this problematic and the answer is to use

css('visibility','hidden')

Witch you can also find in this fiddle.