document.getElementById vs jQuery $()

are they equal?

Not exactly!!

document.getElementById('contents'); //returns a HTML DOM Object

var contents = $('#contents');  //returns a jQuery Object

In jQuery, to get the same result as document.getElementById, you can access the jQuery Object and get the first element in the object (Remember JavaScript objects act similar to associative arrays).

var contents = $('#contents')[0]; //returns a HTML DOM Object

Reference

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4069982/document-getelementbyid-vs-jquery

Hide default search in DataTables

To hide default search box, simply pass ‘dom’:’lrtip’. This will hide default search box but searching feature still working so we can add any other custom searching.

$(‘#myTable’).DataTable({
   “dom”:”lrtip”
});

If you want to hide default search box and disable searching you can pass searching: false. In this we can not add any custom searching.

$(‘#myTable’).DataTable({
    searching: false
});

Reference

https://datatables.net/reference/api/search()