emptyTo not working with custom parser

empty or emptyTo seem to be working correctly, but not if applied to a column with a unique parser. My parser is as follows, if that helps:

$.tablesorter.addParser({
    id: 'pihmsDate',
    is: function(s){
        return false;
    },
    format: function(s){
        s = s.replace(/JAN/,01).replace(/FEB/,02).replace(/MAR/,03).replace(/APR/,04).replace(/MAY/,05).replace(/JUN/,06).replace(/JUL/,07).replace(/AUG/,08).replace(/SEP/,09).replace(/OCT/,10).replace(/NOV/,11).replace(/DEC/,12);
        s = s.replace(/(\d{2})[\/\-](\d{1,2})[\/\-](\d{4})/, '$3/$2/$1');
        return $.tablesorter.formatFloat(new Date(s).getTime());
    },
    type: 'numeric'
});

[Mottie]

Hi @aetna-wsa!

The parser isn't returning an empty string, it is returning NaN because new Date("").getTime() returns NaN which is what the formatFloat function returns. This isn't an empty string, so the emptyTo option won't treat it as such.

Try these changes:

$.tablesorter.addParser({
    id: 'pihmsDate',
    is: function(s){
        return false;
    },
    format: function(s){
        var str = s.replace(/JAN/,01).replace(/FEB/,02).replace(/MAR/,03).replace(/APR/,04).replace(/MAY/,05).replace(/JUN/,06).replace(/JUL/,07).replace(/AUG/,08).replace(/SEP/,09).replace(/OCT/,10).replace(/NOV/,11).replace(/DEC/,12);
        str = str.replace(/(\d{2})[\/\-](\d{1,2})[\/\-](\d{4})/, '$3/$2/$1');
        var date = str ? new Date(str) : str;
        return date instanceof Date && isFinite( date ) ? date.getTime() : s;
    },
    type: 'numeric'
});

Actually, I'm not sure why that parser is needed, at least for English named dates. I believe all modern browsers will correctly parse dates with the three letter month name:

> new Date('JAN 02 2016')
// Sat Jan 02 2016 00:00:00 GMT-0600 (Central Standard Time)
> new Date('02 JAN 2016')
// Sat Jan 02 2016 00:00:00 GMT-0600 (Central Standard Time)

Wow... I never considered that NaN was the value being returned. Nor did I know that three letter month names can be parsed as easily as any other date - I always found it to be an awkward format. Both these solutions work, but I'm going to go with shortDate, now, with the format of dd-mmm-yyyy

I appreciate the help, Rob. Thank you!

I am now using shortDate with the format described above. When I sort that column in either ascending or descending order, all empty cells stay at the bottom. Shouldn't the behavior reverse when moving from asc to desc (or vice versa)?

[Mottie]

The emptyTo option has multiple settings - try them in this demo.

Edit: actually, that last demo is missing two newer settings: emptyMax and emptyMin.

Perfect! The additions of emptyMax and emptyMin are fantastic. Thank you.

[Mottie]

I'm guessing this issue has been resolved, so I'm going to close it. If you continue to have problems, please feel free to continue the discussion in this thread.