jQuery DataTables: COLSPAN in table body TBODY - HTML data

Example for article at https://www.gyrocode.com/articles/jquery-datatables-colspan-in-table-body-tbody/

by gyrocode

HTML

<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.datatables.net/v/dt/dt-1.10.16/datatables.min.css">
<script src="https://cdn.datatables.net/v/dt/dt-1.10.16/datatables.min.js"></script>
<h3><a target="_blank" href="https://www.gyrocode.com/articles/jquery-datatables-colspan-in-table-body-tbody/">jQuery DataTables: COLSPAN in table body TBODY</a> <small>HTML data</small></h3>

<table id="example" class="stripe hover cell-border order-column" cellspacing="0" width="100%">
    <thead>
        <tr>
            <th>Name</th>
            <th>Position</th>
            <th>Office</th>
            <th>Age</th>
            <th>Start date</th>
            <th>Salary</th>
        </tr>
    </thead>
    <tfoot>
        <tr>
            <th>Name</th>
            <th>Position</th>
            <th>Office</th>
            <th>Age</th>
            <th>Start date</th>
            <th>Salary</th>
        </tr>
    </tfoot>
    <tbody>
        <tr>
            <td>Ashton Cox</td>
            <td colspan="3" align="center">N/A</td>
            <td style="display: none"></td>
            <td style="display: none"></td>
            <td>2009/01/12</td>
            <td>$86,000</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>Tiger Nixon</td>
            <td>System Architect</td>
            <td>Edinburgh</td>
            <td>61</td>
            <td>2011/04/25</td>
            <td>$320,800</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>Garrett Winters</td>
            <td>Accountant</td>
            <td>Tokyo</td>
            <td>63</td>
            <td>2011/07/25</td>
            <td>$170,750</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>Bradley Greer</td>
            <td>Software Engineer</td>
            <td>London</td>
            <td>41</td>
            <td>2012/10/13</td>
            <td>$132,000</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>Dai Rios</td>
            <td>Personnel Lead</td>
            <td>Edinburgh</td>
            <td>35</td>
            <td>2012/09/26</td>
           ...

JavaScript

$(document).ready(function (){
    var table = $('#example').DataTable();
});