Customize the sort algorithm/function of a DataTable

[Muntaner]

Let's suppose I don't need to order the rows of a DataTable in the order decided by the embedded matSort, but I want to sort the rows by introducing a customized sorting algorithm/function.

Is that possible?

[willshowell]

@Muntaner This isn't related to material.angular.io. Really it's a question for stack overflow since it isn't an bug report.

But anyway, you may want to override sortData or sortingDataAccessor in the MatTableDataSource.

[Muntaner]

@willshowell, thanks a lot and sorry for the nature of my question, I was thinking that this functionality wasn't exposed on the current implementation of DataTable.

By searching I landed on this pull, but I still can't understand how to correctly override the sortData to customize the sorting behaviour and I can't find this on the documentation. Am I missing something?

[Muntaner]

Ok, sorry again for the trivial question, I achieved the result by overriding the sortData function with the following snippets of code:

dataSourceMovements = new MatTableDataSource(this.movements);
...
ngAfterViewInit() {
...
    this.dataSourceMovements.sortData = (data, sort: MatSort) => {
      //custom ordering function; normally, it uses and returns a 'sortedData' array variable where the ordered data will be stored;
...
return sortedData;
  }
}

IMHO this could be a good addition to the docs, since it isn't immediate for the developer to figure out how to customize the sorting logic of the DataTable.

[jaroslaw-bagnicki]

@Muntaner If You still intrested topic check this: angular/components#8121 (comment)