title: Is it possible to filter a jQuery DataTable by data attribute?
body: <p>I was wondering if it is at all possible to filter a jQuery DataTable by one of its data attributes instead of the contents of its cells. To dynamically apply a filter to a column, one uses this call:</p>
  
  <pre><code>$table.fnFilter('^(Some value)$', columnIndex, true, false);
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This will filter the exact contents of the cell by default using regex. However, assume that my cells are structured this way:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;td data-label="Active"&gt;&lt;i class="fa fa-check fa-lg"&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Or</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;td data-label="Active"&gt;Active&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span class="mute"&gt;Some text&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I would like to be able to have the DataTable filter by the exact content of the attribute <code>data-label</code> instead of the cell contents. Is it a matter of defining the search type when setting up columns on table init? Or is there a way to define to filter by attribute instead of contents?</p>