How to do custom filtering with Datatables and server-side processing

Question

I am using Datatables to display tabular data in my Web application, and have configured it to make use of server-side processing, i.e. query the server via AJAX for filtered da

Answer 1

This answer is updated for version 1.10.6

This is now can be done using the ajax option.

Sample code

 $table.dataTable({
            "ajax":  {
                "url": "example.com/GetData",
                "type": "POST",
                "data": function(d) {
                    d.Foo = "bar";
                    d.Bar = "foo";
                    d.FooBar = "foobarz";
                }
            },
            "serverSide":true,
        });

Foo, Bar and FooBar will be posted as Form Data as additional parameters along with other existing ones like draw, start, length, etc so depending on your server side language you can read them accordingly.

In a real life scenerio, you would probably have a Search button and some input, you can trigger the filtering process by calling

        var table = $table.DataTable();
        table.ajax.reload(); 

when the button is clicked.