AngularJS Table: Sorting, OrderBy & Uppercase Filter [Examples]

Tables are one of the common elements used in HTML when working with web pages.

Tables in HTML are designed using the HTML tag

<table> tag – This is the main tag used for displaying the table.
<tr> – This tag is used for segregating the rows within the table.
<td> – This tag is used for displaying the actual table data.
<th> – This is used for the table header data.

Using the above available HTML tags along with AngularJS, we can make it easier to populate table data. In short, the ng-repeat directive is used to fill in table data.

We will look at how to achieve this during this chapter. We will also look at how we can use the orderby and uppercase filters along with using the $index attribute to display Angular table indexes.

Populate & Display Data in a Table

As we discussed in the introduction to this chapter, the basis for creating the table structure in an HTML page remains the same.

The structure of the table is still created using the normal HTML tags of <table>,<tr> , <td> and <th>. However, the data is populated by using the ng-repeat directive in AngularJS.
Let’s look at a simple example of how we can implement Angular tables.
In this example,

We are going to create an Angular table which will have course topics along with their descriptions.

Step 1) We will first going to add a “style” tag to our HTML page so that the table can be displayed as a proper table.

The style tag is added to the HTML page. This is the standard way to add any formatting attributes which are required for HTML elements.
We are adding two style values to our table.

One is that there should be a solid border for our Angular table and
Second is that there should be padding put in place for our Angular table data.

Step 2) The next step is to write the code to generate the table, and it’s data.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>

    <meta chrset="UTF 8">

</head>
<body>
<title>Event Registration</title>
<style>
    table,th,td{
        border: 1px solid grey;
        padding:5px;
    }
</style>
<script src="https://code.angularjs.org/1.6.9/angular-route.js"></script>
<script src="https://code.angularjs.org/1.6.9/angular.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://code.angularjs.org/1.6.9/angular.js"></script>
<script src="lib/bootstrap.js"></script>
<script src="lib/bootstrap.css"></script>

<h1> Guru99 Global Event</h1>

<div ng-app="DemoApp" ng-controller="DemoController">
    <table>
        <tr ng-repeat="ptutor in tutorial">
            <td>{{ptutor.Name}}</td>
            <td>{{ptutor.Description}}</td>
        </tr>
    </table>
</div>

<script type="text/javascript">
    var app = angular.module('DemoApp',[]);

    app.controller('DemoController',function($scope) {

        $scope.tutorial = [
            {Name:"Controllers",Description :"Controllers in action"},
            {Name:"Models",Description :"Models and binding data"},
            {Name:"Directives",Description :"Flexibility of Directives"}
        ]});
</script>
</body>
</html>

Code Explanation

We are first creating a variable called “tutorial” and assigning it some key-value pairs in one step. Each key-value pair will be used as data when displaying the table. The tutorial variable is then assigned to the scope object so that it can be accessed from our view.
This is the first step in creating a table, and we use the <table> tag.
For each row of data, we are using the “ng-repeat directive”. This directive goes through each key-value pair in the tutorial scope object by using the variable ptutor.
Finally, we are using the <td> tag along with the key-value pairs (ptutor.Name and ptutor.Description) to display the Angular table data.

If the code is executed successfully, the following Output will be shown when you run your code in the browser.

Output

From the above output,

We can see that the table is displayed properly with the data from the array of key-value pairs defined in the controller.
The table data was generated by going through each of the key-value pairs by using the “ng-repeat directive”.

AngularJS in-built Filter

It’s very common to use the inbuilt filters within AngularJS to change the way the data is displayed in the tables. We have already seen filters in action in an earlier chapter. Let’s have a quick recap of filters before we proceed ahead.

In Angular.JS filters are used to format the value of expression before it is displayed to the user. An example of a filter is the ‘uppercase’ filter which takes on a string output and formats the string and displays all the characters in the string as uppercase.

So in the below example, if the value of the variable ‘TutorialName’ is ‘AngularJS’, the output of the below expression will be ‘ANGULARJS’.

In this section, we will be looking at how the orderBy and uppercase filters can be used in tables in more detail.

Sort Table with OrderBy Filter

This filter is used to sort the table based on one of the table columns. In the previous example, the output for our Angular table data appeared as shown below.

Controllers	Controllers in action
Models	Models and binding data
Directives	Flexibility of Directives

Let’s look at an example, on how we can use the “orderBy” filter and sort the Angular table data using the first column in the table.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>

    <meta chrset="UTF 8">

</head>
<body>
<title>Event Registration</title>
<style>
    table,th,td{
        border: 1px solid grey;
        padding:5px;
    }
</style>
<script src="https://code.angularjs.org/1.6.9/angular-route.js"></script>
<script src="https://code.angularjs.org/1.6.9/angular.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://code.angularjs.org/1.6.9/angular.js"></script>
<script src="lib/bootstrap.js"></script>
<script src="lib/bootstrap.css"></script>

<h1> Guru99 Global Event</h1>

<div ng-app="DemoApp" ng-controller="DemoController">
    <table>
        <tr ng-repeat="ptutor in tutorial | orderBy : 'Name'">
            <td>{{ptutor.Name}}</td>
            <td>{{ptutor.Description}}</td>
        </tr>
    </table>
</div>

<script type="text/javascript">
    var app = angular.module('DemoApp',[]);

    app.controller('DemoController',function($scope) {

        $scope.tutorial = [
            {Name:"Controllers",Description :"Controllers in action"},
            {Name:"Models",Description :"Models and binding data"},
            {Name:"Directives",Description :"Flexibility of Directives"}
        ]});
</script>
</body>
</html>

Code Explanation

We are using the same code as we did for creating our table, the only difference this time is that we are using the “orderBy” filter along with the ng-repeat directive. In this case, we are saying that we want to order the table by the key “Name”.

If the code is executed successfully, the following Output will be shown when you run your code in the browser.

Output

From the output,

We can see that the data in the Angular table has been sorted as per the data in the first column. In our dataset, the “Directives” data comes from the “Models” data, but because we applied the orderBy filter, the tables get sorted accordingly.

Display Table with Uppercase Filter

We can also use the uppercase filter to change the data in the Angular table to uppercase.

Let’s take a look at an example of how we can achieve this.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>

    <meta chrset="UTF 8">

</head>
<body>
<title>Event Registration</title>
<style>
    table,th,td{
        border: 1px solid grey;
        padding:5px;
    }
</style>
<script src="https://code.angularjs.org/1.6.9/angular-route.js"></script>
<script src="https://code.angularjs.org/1.6.9/angular.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://code.angularjs.org/1.6.9/angular.js"></script>
<script src="lib/bootstrap.js"></script>
<script src="lib/bootstrap.css"></script>

<h1> Guru99 Global Event</h1>

<div ng-app="DemoApp" ng-controller="DemoController">
    <table>
        <tr ng-repeat="ptutor in tutorial">
            <td>{{ptutor.Name | uppercase}}</td>
            <td>{{ptutor.Description}}</td>
        </tr>
    </table>
</div>

<script type="text/javascript">
    var app = angular.module('DemoApp',[]);

    app.controller('DemoController',function($scope) {

        $scope.tutorial = [
            {Name:"Controllers",Description :"Controllers in action"},
            {Name:"Models",Description :"Models and binding data"},
            {Name:"Directives",Description :"Flexibility of Directives"}
        ]});
</script>
</body>
</html>

Code Explanation

We are using the same code as we did for creating our table, the only difference this time is that we are using the uppercase filter. We are using this filter in conjunction with the “ptutor.Name” so that all of the text in the first column will be displayed in uppercase.

If the code is executed successfully, the following Output will be shown when you run your code in the browser.

Output

From the output,

We can see that by using the “uppercase” filter, all of the data in the first column is displayed with uppercase characters.

Display the Table Index ($index)

To display the table index, add a <td> with $index.

Let’s take a look at an example of how we can achieve this.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>

    <meta chrset="UTF 8">

</head>
<body>
<title>Event Registration</title>
<style>
    table,th,td{
        border: 1px solid grey;
        padding:5px;
    }
</style>
<script src="https://code.angularjs.org/1.6.9/angular-route.js"></script>
<script src="https://code.angularjs.org/1.6.9/angular.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://code.angularjs.org/1.6.9/angular.js"></script>
<script src="lib/bootstrap.js"></script>
<script src="lib/bootstrap.css"></script>

<h1> Guru99 Global Event</h1>

<div ng-app="DemoApp" ng-controller="DemoController">
    <table>
        <tr ng-repeat="ptutor in tutorial">
            <td>{{$index + 1}}</td>
            <td>{{ptutor.Name}}</td>
            <td>{{ptutor.Description}}</td>
        </tr>
    </table>
</div>

<script type="text/javascript">
    var app = angular.module('DemoApp',[]);

    app.controller('DemoController',function($scope) {

        $scope.tutorial = [
            {Name:"Controllers",Description :"Controllers in action"},
            {Name:"Models",Description :"Models and binding data"},
            {Name:"Directives",Description :"Flexibility of Directives"}
        ]});
</script>
</body>
</html>

Code Explanation

We are using the same code as we did for creating our table, the only difference this time is that we are adding an extra row to our table to display the index column.In this additional column, we are using the “$index” property provided by AngularJS and then using the +1 operator to increment the index for each row.

If the code is executed successfully, the following Output will be shown when you run your code in the browser.

Output

From the output,

You can see that an additional column has been created. In this column, we can see the indexes being created for each row.

Summary

Table structures are created using the standard tags available within HTML. The data in the table is populated using the “ng-repeat” directive.
The orderBy filter can be used to sort the table based on any column within the table.
The uppercase filter can be used to display the data in any text-based column in uppercase.
The “$index” property can be used to create an index for the table.
One common issue encountered during development with AngularJS.JS tables is the implementation of large datasets which has 1000+ rows of data. Sometimes the ng-repeat directive can become non-responsive, and hence the entire page becomes unresponsive at times. In such a case, it always better to have pagination in which the rows of data is spread across multiple pages.