How to right align numeric data and left align others? - ruby-on-rails-3

Question

I want that if the user enters numeric data it should be left aligned and if he enters other datatype then it should be left aligned. Text align I can give the css property that text-align:right. How can I find the datatype when the user enters data? I am using the jquery datatables.

Answer 1

This is not a rails concern. If you want to set the css property based on the nature of content in the cell, I would strongly advise a jQuery / Javascript solution.
You could do something like this:
$(document).ready(function(){
$("td").each(function() {
if (parseInt($(this).text()) > 1) {
$(this).css("text-align", "right");
}
});
});
For a more complicated solution you could implement your own Jquery Filter, something like:
$.extend($.expr[":"], {
expr: (function() {
var op = {
'=': function(n1, n2) { return n1 == n2; },
'!=': function(n1, n2) { return n1 != n2; },
'>': function(n1, n2) { return n1 > n2; },
'>=': function(n1, n2) { return n1 >= n2; },
'<': function(n1, n2) { return n1 < n2; },
'<=': function(n1, n2) { return n1 <= n2; }
};
var ops = [];
for (p in op) {
ops.push(p);
}
var r = new RegExp("^\\s*(" + ops.join("|") + ")\\s*(-?\\d+(?:\\.\\d+)?)\\s*$");
return function(elem, i, match) {
var m = r.exec(match[3]);
return m && op[m[1]](parseFloat($(elem).text()), parseFloat(m[2]));
};
})()
});
Which would allow you to filter values based on numeric constraints like:
$("td:expr(>5)").css("text-align", "right");