Auto search type
We've seen in the search inputs examples that search can automatically determine what input type should be used based on the data type of the column. That is
extended when the DataTable loads data via Ajax (ajax) to include the searchList content type.
If a column has a list of options in the loaded JSON it will automatically use searchList. Otherwise, it will fall through to using searchText, searchDateTime or searchNumber depending on the data type.
Note that if you don't want this behaviour the searchList option can be disabled through the allowSearchList option of search / searchDropdown.
In this example Position and Office have options defined in the loaded JSON data. The other columns do not and therefore will have an
input based search input in the dropdown.
| Name | Position | Office | Extn. | Start date | Salary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Position | Office | Extn. | Start date | Salary |
- Javascript
- HTML
- CSS
- Ajax
- Server-side script
- Comments
The Javascript shown below is used to initialise the table shown in this example:
$('#example').DataTable({
ajax: '../data/options.json',
columnControl: ['order', 'searchDropdown'],
columns: [
{ data: 'name' },
{ data: 'position' },
{ data: 'office' },
{ data: 'extn' },
{ data: 'start_date' },
{ data: 'salary' }
],
ordering: {
indicators: false,
handler: false
}
});
new DataTable("#example", {
ajax: '../data/options.json',
columnControl: ['order', 'searchDropdown'],
columns: [
{ data: 'name' },
{ data: 'position' },
{ data: 'office' },
{ data: 'extn' },
{ data: 'start_date' },
{ data: 'salary' }
],
ordering: {
indicators: false,
handler: false
}
});
In addition to the above code, the following Javascript library files are loaded for use in this example:
The HTML shown below is the raw HTML table element, before it has been enhanced by DataTables:
This example uses a little bit of additional CSS beyond what is loaded from the library files (below), in order to correctly display the table. The additional CSS used is shown below:
The following CSS library files are loaded for use in this example to provide the styling of the table:
This table loads data by Ajax. The latest data that has been loaded is shown below. This data will update automatically as any additional data is loaded.
The script used to perform the server-side processing for this table is shown below. Please note that this is just an example script using PHP. Server-side processing scripts can be written in any language, using the protocol described in the DataTables documentation.