<li>The <code>id</code> block is required and must be unique.</li>
<li>The <code>is</code> block will allow the parser to be used for autodetecting the parser
<ul>
<li>Most custom parsers are made for a specific set of data/column, so the <code>is</code> block usually just returns false telling the plugin that the parser doesn't match any columns.</li>
<li>If so desired, the function provides three parameters: <code>s</code> contains the text from the cell, <code>table</code> is the table DOM element and <code>cell</code> is the current cell DOM element.</li>
<li>This function must <code>return true</code> before the plugin will use the custom parser's format block to process the column content.</li>
<li>In version 2.7.4, the <code>is</code> block became optional because most parsers just return false.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>The <code>format</code> block is used to normalize your data and return it to the plugin for sorting
<ul>
<li>Within this function, modify the given text from the cell (<code>s</code>) or obtain parameters and/or other data from the cell (<code>cell</code>) then return this data to the plugin.</li>
<li>As an example, the date parser takes the date string (e.g. <code>"12/25/2013"</code>) and converts it into a numeric value (<code>1387951200000</code>; <ahref="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Date/getTime">ref</a>) to make sorting and comparing dates easier.</li>
<li>Use the <code>cellIndex</code> if the cells within columns contain different data - see this demo for an example.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>The <code>type</code> block sets the type of sort to use:
<ul>
<li>Set it to either <code>"text"</code> or <code>"numeric"</code>.</li>
<li>This tells the plugin the type of sorter to use.</li>
<li>Text type sorting uses a natural sort and is a tiny bit slower than a pure numeric sort.</li>
<em>NOTE!</em> Assigning the parser using a class name was added in version 2.0.11 (it is not part of the original plugin; use the <code>headers</code> option in older versions).