What is the effect/rationale of the redraw argument on fnUpdate, fnAddData and fnDeleteRow

penguin020

First, my question: When I pass false for the redraw argument when calling fnUpdate, fnAddData and fnDeleteRow, what happens?

Does the change only occur in the dataTable's internal data, and is not reflected in the grid?

It seems like it is being reflected in the grid, at least for fnUpdate.

If the change _is_ being reflected in the grid, what is the purpose of having the redraw argument set to true? Is it a server side processing issue?

I really want to avoid redraws as they are so amazingly slow for a big table in IE8, and they cause my table to scroll to top. Is there a good way to stop the table from scrolling on redraw?

Just for context, here is my situation.

I have an app that displays a unpaged scrollable grid, and then updates it in response to some axax polling I do with the server. As far as dataTable is concerned, it is pure client side, no server side processing.

Here is my create:
[code]
this._dataTable = $('#tableCompletedRequests').dataTable(
{
"bJQueryUI": true,
"bProcessing": true,
"bAutoWidth": false,
"sScrollX": "100%",
"sScrollY": $(window).height() - 270,
"bScrollCollapse": true,
"aoColumnDefs": aoColumnDefs,
'iDisplayLength': -1,
"aaSorting": [[0, 'desc'], [7, 'desc'], [9, 'desc'], [8, 'asc'], [10, 'asc']],
"bDeferRender" : true,
"aLengthMenu": [[25, 50, 100, -1], [25, 50, 100, "All"]],
"fnCreatedRow": Function.createDelegate(this, function (nRow, aData, iDataIndex)
{
this._initContextMenu(nRow);
$(nRow).find("*").attr("unselectable", "on");
})
});
[/code]