title: How to do column search in DataTables when the column has more than one candidate value?
body: <p>I am using <a href="https://datatables.net" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Datatables</a> to display table data in my JSP page. I have enabled search functionality in my datatable. </p>
  
  <p>My row structure is in the <a href="https://jsfiddle.net/1rde0nbm/2/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">fiddle</a></p>
  
  <p>My first column consists of three elements </p>
  
  <p><strong>A bold tag</strong> with some data in it,
   <strong>A select element</strong> with some value selected,
   <strong>Another select element</strong> with some value selected</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;tr class="even" id="firstRow15" role="row"&gt;
    &lt;td&gt;
      &lt;input class="allocationRange" id="employeeId" name="costAllocationVOs[15].empSeq" style="color: red;" type="hidden" value="228"&gt;
      &lt;input class="allocationRange" id="employeeName" name="costAllocationVOs[15].employeeName" type="hidden" value="Sudarshan Goswami"&gt;
      &lt;b&gt;Donald Trump&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;
      &lt;select class="selectDesignationDropDown" name="costAllocationVOs[15].empRole" required="'required'" style="background-color:#337ab7;border-radius:5px;border-color:#337ab7;color:white;font-weight:bold;width:50%;height:20px"&gt;
        &lt;option data-rate="87.0" value="113"&gt;Software Engineer&lt;/option&gt;
        &lt;option data-rate="127.0" selected="selected" value="115"&gt;
          Software Consultant
        &lt;/option&gt;
      &lt;/select&gt; 
      &lt;select name="costAllocationVOs[15].locationId" required="'required'" style="background-color:#FF7F27;border-radius:5px;border-color:#FF7F27;color:white;font-weight:bold"&gt;
        &lt;option value=""&gt;Select&lt;/option&gt;
        &lt;option selected="selected" value="1"&gt;PUNE&lt;/option&gt;
        &lt;option value="2"&gt;UK&lt;/option&gt;
        &lt;option value="3"&gt;BLR&lt;/option&gt;
      &lt;/select&gt; 
      &lt;i aria-hidden="true" class="fa fa-clone cloneclick" style="cursor:hand;color:#337ab7" title="clone the row"&gt;&lt;/i&gt;
    &lt;/td&gt;&lt;!-- January Column --&gt;
    &lt;td style="text-align: center; background-color: rgb(234, 245, 255);"&gt;
      &lt;input class="allocationRange" data-dtmonth="1" data-dtyear="2017" id="janId" name="costAllocationVOs[15].janAllocPer" readonly size="250" step="any" style="color: rgb(38, 155, 42);" type="number" value="0.0"&gt;&lt;br&gt;
    &lt;/td&gt;&lt;!-- February Column --&gt;
    &lt;td style="text-align: center; background-color: rgb(234, 245, 255);"&gt;
      &lt;input class="allocationRange" data-dtmonth="2" data-dtyear="2017" id="febId" name="costAllocationVOs[15].febAllocPer" readonly size="250" step="any" style="color: rgb(38, 155, 42);" type="number" value="0.0"&gt;&lt;br&gt;
    &lt;/td&gt;
  &lt;/tr&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I want to enable search only on column 0 for the data inside the bold tag and only the values selected in the select tag(<strong>not on all the options in the select tag</strong>)</p>
  
  <p>How do i make it happen. Currently the search is working on the data inside the bold tag as well as for all the available options inside the select tags.  </p>