Is there an easy way to use my own AJAX logic?

timwis

I'm trying to use DataTables to fetch my data from cloudmine.me (similar to iriscouch). It has its own JS library with a get() function where you provide parameters like query, limit, skip, etc. I can't seem to get DataTables able to interact with it.

It seems like DataTables can only interact with a very specific type of server side script that accepts parameters like iDisplayLength and iSortCol_0.

It looks like the first step is to override fnServerData, where I'd like to put something like cloudmine.get({sort:'column_name:dir', limit: x, skip: x}); but to get those 3 variables I'd have to swim through the aoData array and match certain pieces to others (like how I'd get the sort column name).

Apart from this, I really like DataTables. Is there an easier way to do this?

timwis

Looks like I got it working through a work-around. I'd still be interested to know if there's an easier way to do it.

For anyone interested, here's what I did to convert the key/value array to a regular object

[code]
function unserializeArray(dataArray) {
var dataObj = {};
$.each(dataArray, function(key, val) {
dataObj[this.name] = this.value;
});
return dataObj;
}
[/code]

Then in my .dataTable init I do:

[code]
fnServerData: function(url, aoData, callback) {
var data = unserializeArray(aoData);
var options = {
sort: data['mDataProp_' + data.iSortCol_0] + ':' + data.sSortDir_0,
limit: data.iDisplayLength,
skip: data.iDisplayStart,
snippet: 'messages_array', // converts JSON result to an array of objects
count: true
};
ws.search('[_type = "message"]', options)
.on('result', function(data, response) {
callback({
aaData: data,
iTotalRecords: response.count,
iTotalDisplayRecords: response.count
});
});
}
[/code]

It works.

allan

> It seems like DataTables can only interact with a very specific type of server side script that accepts parameters like iDisplayLength and iSortCol_0.

If you want to use server-side processing, then yes - the server-side script must implement an interface as described here: http://datatables.net/usage/server-side . However, for client-side processing with Ajax sourced data then no, virtual any JSON data source is directly supported through the use of mData: http://datatables.net/blog/Extended_data_source_options_with_DataTables .

If you want to override the Ajax that DataTables does by default, then fnServerData is the right way to do :-)

Allan