Automatically sorts jQuery datatables based on atributes

autosort.js

/*
Autosorting function for jQuery datatables. Looks for a table with the classes datatable and autosort
If it finds thead>tr>th[data-autosort] and then sorts the table by that TH's index in the direction indicated
 by the data-sortdir attribute.

 @author JM Addington <jm@jmaddington.com>
 */
function autosort() {
    $('.datatable.autosort').each(function() {
        var n = 0;
        parent = this;
        $(this).find('thead').find('tr').children().each(function() {
            if ($(this).attr('data-autosort') == 'true') {
                $(parent).dataTable().fnSort( [[n, $(this).attr('data-sortdir')]]);
            }
            n++;
        })
    });
}