Redraw datatables after using ajax to refresh the table content?

Anagio picture Anagio · Oct 19, 2011 · Viewed 173.3k times · Source

I am using Datatables and have a button on the page that refreshes the table using AJAX. To be clear the table isn't using an ajax source of data, we are just using ajax to refresh it only when needed. Ajax is refreshing the div which the table is wrapped in. I know i'm losing my pagination buttons and filtering capability because the table needs to be redrawn but i'm not sure how to add this into the table initialization code.

Datatables code

var oTable6;
$(document).ready(function() {
    oTable6 = $('#rankings').dataTable( {
        "sDom":'t<"bottom"filp><"clear">',
        "bAutoWidth": false,
        "sPaginationType": "full_numbers",
        "aoColumns": [ 
            { "bSortable": false, "sWidth": "10px" },
            null,
            null,
            null,
            null,
            null,
            null,
            null,
            null,
            null,
            null,
            null
        ]

    });
});

The ajax code is this

$("#ajaxchange").click(function(){
    var campaign_id = $("#campaigns_id").val();
    var fromDate = $("#from").val();
    var toDate = $("#to").val();

    var url = 'http://domain.com/account/campaign/ajaxrefreshgrid?format=html';
    $.post(url, { campaignId: campaign_id, fromdate: fromDate, todate: toDate},
        function( data ) { 
            $("#ajaxresponse").html(data);
        });
});

I tried this but it didn't work

"fnDrawCallback": function() {
    function( data ) { 
        $("#ajaxresponse").html(data);
    };
},

Answer

swatkins picture swatkins · Oct 25, 2011

It looks as if you could use the API functions to

  • clear the table ( fnClearTable )
  • add new data to the table ( fnAddData)
  • redraw the table ( fnDraw )

http://datatables.net/api

UPDATE

I guess you're using the DOM Data Source (for server-side processing) to generate your table. I didn't really get that at first, so my previous answer won't work for that.

To get it to work without rewriting your server side code:

What you'll need to do is totally remove the old table (in the dom) and replace it with the ajax result content, then reinitialize the datatable:

// in your $.post callback:

function (data) {

    // remove the old table
    $("#ajaxresponse").children().remove();

    // replace with the new table
    $("#ajaxresponse").html(data);

    // reinitialize the datatable
    $('#rankings').dataTable( {
    "sDom":'t<"bottom"filp><"clear">',
    "bAutoWidth": false,
    "sPaginationType": "full_numbers",
        "aoColumns": [ 
        { "bSortable": false, "sWidth": "10px" },
        null,
        null,
        null,
        null,
        null,
        null,
        null,
        null,
        null,
        null,
        null
        ]

    } 
    );
}