title: Ignore non-numeric characters in numbers for DataTables sort
body: <p>I'm creating a custom sort plugin for DataTables which will sort numeric columns which contain non-numeric rows as well. I got the part where it puts the 'N/A' rows at the bottom but cannot seem to figure out, how to make it ignore the commas in the numbers.</p>
  
  <p>For example:</p>
  
  <p>$12,443.00<br/>
  362,123,231<br/>
  N/A<br/>
  N/A<br/>
  null<br/>
  34,242.42<br/>
  23,234<br/>
  null</p>
  
  <p>The code below manages to ignore everything except for the commas in the numbers.</p>
  
  <p>Code:</p>
  
  <pre><code>function numeric_sort(a, b, high) {
      var reg = /[+-]?((\d+(\.\d*)?)|\.\d+)([eE][+-]?[0-9]+)?/;
      a = a.match(reg);
      a = a !== null ? parseFloat(a[0]) : high;
      b = b.match(reg);
      b = b !== null ? parseFloat(b[0]) : high;
      return ((a &lt; b) ? -1 : ((a &gt; b) ? 1 : 0));
  }
  
  jQuery.extend( jQuery.fn.dataTableExt.oSort, {
      "numeric-empty-bottom-asc": function (a, b) {
          return numeric_sort(a, b, Number.POSITIVE_INFINITY);
      },
      "numeric-empty-bottom-desc": function (a, b) {
          return numeric_sort(a, b, Number.NEGATIVE_INFINITY) * -1;
      }
  } );
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I got the code from: <a href="http://jsfiddle.net/6qmkY/" rel="nofollow">http://jsfiddle.net/6qmkY/</a></p>
  
  <p>Any help will be appreciated. </p>