How to disable a search/filter on a specific column on a datatable?

Question

My datatable has 5 columns and I need to disable filtering for the 3rd, 4th and last column.

please help!!!

this is the javascript:

<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript" class="init">
        $(document).ready(function() {

            // Setup - add a text input to each footer cell
            $('#example tfoot th').each( function () {
                var title = $('#example thead th').eq( $(this).index() ).text();
                $(this).html( '<input type="text" placeholder="Search '+title+'" />' );
            } );

            // DataTable
            var table = $('#example').DataTable();

            // Apply the search
            table.columns().eq( 0 ).each( function ( colIdx ) {
                $( 'input', table.column( colIdx ).footer() ).on( 'keyup change', function () {
                    table
                        .column( colIdx )
                        .search( this.value )
                        .draw();
                } );
            } );
        } );
</script>

Answer 1

You can use .not to exclude the columns you want to add input text too. Furthermore, you can also add code to avoid adding event handlers to any input boxes in the excluded columns (although if no input boxes exist in those cells it doesn't matter):

$(document).ready(function() {
    // Setup - add a text input to each footer cell
    $('#example tfoot th').not(":eq(2),:eq(3),:eq(4)") //Exclude columns 3, 4, and 5
                          .each( function () {
        var title = $('#example thead th').eq( $(this).index() ).text();
        $(this).html( '<input type="text" placeholder="Search '+title+'" />' );
    } );

    // DataTable
    var table = $('#example').DataTable();

    // Apply the search
    table.columns().eq( 0 ).each( function ( colIdx ) {
        if (colIdx == 2 || colIdx == 3 || colIdx == 4) return; //Do not add event handlers for these columns

        $( 'input', table.column( colIdx ).footer() ).on( 'keyup change', function () {
            table
                .column( colIdx )
                .search( this.value )
                .draw();
        } );
    } );
} );

See Fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/30phqqqg/1/