Incorrect sorting in TableSorter

Question

Strange behavoir in tablesorter:

$(document).ready(function() { 
    var timeInSec = function(node) { return $(node).attr("time") };
    var sortDigit = { sorter : "digit" };

    $("#agentRapport").tablesorter({ 
        headers: {
            1: sortDigit,
            2: sortDigit
        },
        textExtraction: {
             1: timeInSec,
             2: timeInSec
        },
        sortList: [[1,1]]
    }); 
}); 

Resulting sorted table looks like this (sorted the following myself like you would see it in the browser):

...
<tr>
    <td>Banana</td>
    <td time="1411252">23 min 31 sec</td>
    <td time="352813">5 min 52 sec</td>
    <td>4</td>
    <td>225</td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td>Apple</td>
    <td time="1391952">23 min 11 sec</td>
    <td time="347988">5 min 47 sec</td>
    <td>4</td>
    <td>86</td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td>Plum</td>
    <td time="1427192">23 min 47 sec</td>
    <td time="356798">5 min 56 sec</td>
    <td>4</td>
    <td>119</td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td>Pear</td>
    <td time="1381072">23 min 1 sec</td>
    <td time="345268">5 min 45 sec</td>
    <td>4</td>
    <td>108</td>
</tr>
...

Is this a bug?

Answer 1

If you are using the original tablesorter (v2.0.5b) from tablesorter.com, the above code will not work since the textExtraction function will not allow the targetting of specific columns.

However, you can use my fork of tablesorter which does allow this option (demo)

The fork should work without any extra functions since it also has an alpha-numeric sort (demo):

$(function () {
    $("#agentRapport").tablesorter({
        sortList: [
            [1, 1]
        ]
    });
});

But if you want to continue using the original version of tablesorter, you can use a parser, and save yourself from adding a time="#" attribute to every cell (demo):

$.tablesorter.addParser({
    id: "min&sec",
    is: function (s) {
        return false;
    },
    format: function (s, table) {
        var min = (parseInt(s.match(/(\d+)(?:\s+min)/), 10) || 0) * 60,
            sec = (parseInt(s.match(/(\d+)(?:\s+sec)/), 10) || 0);
        return min + sec;
    },
    type: "numeric"
});

$(function () {

    $("#agentRapport").tablesorter({
        headers: {
            1: { sorter: "min&sec" },
            2: { sorter: "min&sec" }
        },
        sortList: [
            [1, 1]
        ]
    });
});