Replies

• fbas Posts: 1,094Questions: 4Answers: 0

  October 2011

  in that example, opening up the row details triggers dynamic loading of content. your content can be whatever you want, so you could load a table with 1 to 5 rows of data as you intended.
  
  I think that's the way to go.
• cschnaars Posts: 8Questions: 0Answers: 0

  October 2011 edited October 2011

  Thanks for the comment. Unfortunately, I'm still trying to figure out how to do what fbas suggests.
  
  I can format my data file to whatever format is needed for the data table. But just to help visualize this example, let's say I have a data file like this:
  [code]{ "aaData": [
  {
  "employee": "John Smith",
  "region": 4
  "city": "Duluth",
  "state": "Minn.",
  "sales": [
  [2007, "$3,043,692"],
  [2008, "$4,263,417"],
  [2010, "$312,902"]
  ]
  },
  {
  "employee": "Allan Jones",
  "region": 1
  "city": "Bethesda",
  "state": "Md.",
  "sales": [
  [2007, "$11,213"]
  [2008, "$990,576"]
  [2009, "$842,107"]
  [2010, "$1,641,863"]
  ]
  },
  {
  "employee": "Jennifer Hill",
  "region": 5
  "city": "Miami",
  "state": "Fla.",
  "sales": []
  }
  ]} [/code]
  What I want to be able to do is post a data table that only shows the employee, region, city and state fields. But the user also could click a parent row to view the annual sales data contained in the child rows. You can see from the example, that one person has three child rows, one has four and one doesn't have any. The number of child rows is arbitrary, and that's what I can't figure out how to handle.
  
  I've found examples of data displayed when it's just a collection of parent rows, with some fields hidden until the row is clicked to display more data:
  http://www.datatables.net/examples/api/row_details.html
  http://datatables.net/blog/Drill-down_rows
  
  I've also found a blog post by Allan that shows how to use child rows that are really arrays within a parent row:
  http://datatables.net/blog/Extended_data_source_options_with_DataTables
  But the blog post sample code has exactly one child row per parent. I haven't been able to figure out how to extend this so I can have an arbitrary number of child rows.
  
  Would I have to write a JavaScript function that takes the "sales" array as an argument, then loop through the individual arrays within to create a dynamic html table?
  
  Thanks in advance for your help.
  
  chris
• fbas Posts: 1,094Questions: 4Answers: 0

  October 2011

  I suggest using the drill-down row. it's just one row, but you can turn your "sales" array of arrays into a table (even into a datatable) and put that table into the drill down row
• cschnaars Posts: 8Questions: 0Answers: 0

  November 2011

  I didn't want to leave this thread hanging, particularly since fbas was kind enough to respond to my posts. I took fbas' suggestion to use Allan's drill-down row example (http://datatables.net/blog/Drill-down_rows) as a template. From there, I built a JavaScript function that parsed the array of arrays and dynamically built a second table that is displayed under the "parent" row.
  
  One problem I was having with the master array is that each child array was made up of key-value pairs. I'm not very well versed in JavaScript and could not figure out how to work with this data without removing the keys. Once I did that, my function worked perfectly.
  
  I'm still developing the table but hope to have something online within the next two weeks. The issue of how to build the child rows, however, has been completely resolved. Thanks, fbas!
  
  chris
• cschnaars Posts: 8Questions: 0Answers: 0

  November 2011

  We FINALLY got this data table up and running. It highlights NCAA football coach salaries. Besides the accordion rows, which display data pulled from nested arrays of contracts data, we have embedded Google charts. You can find it here:
  http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/story/2011-11-17/cover-college-football-coaches-salaries-rise/51242232/1
  
  Blog post on how we did the accordion rows: http://www.chrisschnaars.org/2011/11/16/building-jquery-datatables-with-expandable-accordion-rows/
  
  Thanks again, fbas!
  
  chris