JQuery Datatables. Set default search value for a column when initializing a table

Question

I'm using datatable 1.10.15 with server side processing. I want to set value for a column search when table initializes. I tried this but without success:

$('#dataTable').DataTable({
    ...
    columns:[
        ....
        {name:'name', search:{value:'q'}}
        ....
    ]
});

Answer 1

You can try:

$('#example').dataTable( {
  "search": {
    "search": "Fred"
  }
});

It will initialize the datatable with Fred in search column.

Working Fiddle

Reference

Answer 2

Here can be used SearchCols.

Basically the same as the search option, but in this case for individual columns, rather than the global filter, this option defined the filtering to apply to the table during initialisation.

The array must be of the same size as the number of columns, and each element be an object with the parameters search and escapeRegex (the latter is optional). 'null' is also accepted and the default will be used.

Example:

$('#example').dataTable( {
  "searchCols": [
    null,
    { "search": "My filter" },
    null,
    { "search": "^[0-9]", "escapeRegex": false }
  ]
} );

This is the only right solution when you can set a default search value when initializing a datatable. it's worth the datatable documentation.

More info: https://datatables.net/reference/option/searchCols

Working example: http://live.datatables.net/piqidoqo/603/edit