NOTE!

Added this parser in v2.28.6.
The problem with leading zeros:
1. When using the number parser (sorter-digit in the first column), the leading zeros are removed upon parsing, so all equal values are sorted in a non-stable manner.
2. Switching the parser to text (sorter-text in the second column) will behave the same as the number parser in the first column. This happens because the internal natural sort algorithm processes numeric values similar to the number parser.
3. Prior to this parser, it was recommended to use a plain text sort (setting textSorter for the third column; see issue #409). This method is not ideal as a plain sort will sort 2 after 15, and sort all leading zeros at the top of the column.
4. This parser (sorter-leadingZeros in the fourth column) processes leading zeros by subtracting a very small number from the parsed value based on the total length of the string.

Click on the "Toggle parsed values" button to see the values as saved to the cache.

The small number the leading zeros parser subtracts from the cell value has a precision of 10 digits (1e-10). If you are using higher precision values, then copy this parser and increase the precision as needed.

Demo

Number sort	Natural text sort	Plain text sort	Leading Zeros parser
001	001	001	001
1	1	1	1
2	2	2	2
10	10	10	10
01	01	01	01
1.01	1.01	1.01	1.01
000001	000001	000001	000001
00001	00001	00001	00001
020	020	020	020
0001	0001	0001	0001
3	3	3	3
10	10	10	10
12	12	12	12
15	15	15	15
02	02	02	02
5	5	5	5
25	25	25	25
21	21	21	21

Page Header

<link href="css/theme.blue.css" rel="stylesheet">
<script src="js/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script src="js/jquery.tablesorter.js"></script>
<script src="js/parser-leading-zeros.js"></script>

tablesorter

Leading zeros parser

Flexible client-side table sorting

Demo

Page Header

Javascript

HTML