DataTable using PHP

Question

Is it possible to code a DataTable using PHP?

When searching online all tutorials etc are using ajax, which I\'m not to comfortable with so just wondering if there

Answer 1

1)Include Css and JS files:

<link href="css/datatables/dataTables.bootstrap.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8" src="js/jquery.js"></script>
<script src="js/datatables/jquery.dataTables.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="js/datatables/dataTables.bootstrap.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

2)Create function in controller file:

function MyData()
        {
            $aColumns = array('user_id','username','address');

            $sTable = 'user';

            $iDisplayStart = $this->input->get_post('iDisplayStart', true);
            $iDisplayLength = $this->input->get_post('iDisplayLength', true);
            $iSortCol_0 = $this->input->get_post('iSortCol_0', true);
            $iSortingCols = $this->input->get_post('iSortingCols', true);
            $sSearch = $this->input->get_post('sSearch', true);
            $sEcho = $this->input->get_post('sEcho', true);

            // Paging
            if(isset($iDisplayStart) && $iDisplayLength != '-1')
            {
                $this->db->limit($this->db->escape_str($iDisplayLength), $this->db->escape_str($iDisplayStart));
            }

            // Ordering
            if(isset($iSortCol_0))
            {
                for($i=0; $i<intval($iSortingCols); $i++)
                {
                    $iSortCol = $this->input->get_post('iSortCol_'.$i, true);
                    $bSortable = $this->input->get_post('bSortable_'.intval($iSortCol), true);
                    $sSortDir = $this->input->get_post('sSortDir_'.$i, true);

                    if($bSortable == 'true')
                    {
                        $this->db->order_by($aColumns[intval($this->db->escape_str($iSortCol))], $this->db->escape_str($sSortDir));
                    }
                }
            }

            /* 
             * Filtering
             * NOTE this does not match the built-in DataTables filtering which does it
             * word by word on any field. It's possible to do here, but concerned about efficiency
             * on very large tables, and MySQL's regex functionality is very limited
             */
            if(isset($sSearch) && !empty($sSearch))
            {
                for($i=0; $i<count($aColumns); $i++)
                {
                    $bSearchable = $this->input->get_post('bSearchable_'.$i, true);

                    // Individual column filtering
                    if(isset($bSearchable) && $bSearchable == 'true')
                    {
                        $this->db->or_like($aColumns[$i], $this->db->escape_like_str($sSearch));
                    }
                }
            }

            // Select Data


            $this->db->select('SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS '.str_replace(' , ', ' ', implode(', ', $aColumns)), false);               
            $rResult = $this->db->get($sTable);

            // Data set length after filtering
            $this->db->select('FOUND_ROWS() AS found_rows');
            $iFilteredTotal = $this->db->get()->row()->found_rows;

            // Total data set length
            $iTotal = $this->db->count_all($sTable);

            // Output
            $output = array(
                'sEcho' => intval($sEcho),
                'iTotalRecords' => $iTotal,
                'iTotalDisplayRecords' => $iFilteredTotal,
                'aaData' => array()
            );

            foreach($rResult->result_array() as $aRow)
            {
                $row = array();

                foreach($aColumns as $col)
                {
                     $row[] = $aRow['user_id'];
                     $row[] = $aRow['username'];
                     $row[] = $aRow['address'];
                }

                $output['aaData'][] = $row;
            }

            echo json_encode($output);

        }

3)Create a table in view file:

<table class="table table-bordered display" cellspacing="0" width="100%" id="UserTable">
                    <thead>
                      <tr>
                           <th>User Id</th>
                           <th>Username</th>
                           <th>Address</th>
                           <th>Edit / Delete</th>
                      </tr>
                    </thead>        
               </table>

4)Write AJAX:

<script>
var ETable = $('#UserTable').dataTable({
                "infoEmpty": "No records available",
                "sProcessing": "DataTables is currently busy",
                "processing": true,
                // "sorting" : true,
                "order": [ [1, 'asc'] ],             
                "serverSide": true,
                "sAjaxSource": "user/MyData",
                "aLengthMenu": [[10, 25, 50,100], [10, 25, 50,100]],
                // "aaSorting": [[0, 'desc']],
                // { "sExtends": "editor_create", "editor": "NoteEditor" },
                "sSearch":true,
                "iDisplayLength": 10,                
                // "dom": 'T<"clear">lfrtip',
                "sdom": 'zrtSpi',
                "bDeferRender": true,
                "oLanguage": {
                    "sInfoFiltered": "",
                    "sProcessing": "<img style='position:absolute;' src=''>"
                },
                "tableTools": {
                    "sSwfPath": "assets/swf/copy_csv_xls_pdf.swf"
                },
                "aColumns": [
                    {
                        "data": null,
                        "defaultContent": '',
                        "className": 'select-checkbox',
                        "orderable": false
                    },
                    { "data": "user_id" },
                    { "data": "username" },
                    { "data": "address" }
                ]
    });
</script>

Answer 2

Even though I totally agree with comments below your question! as a quick workaround (with no learning curve!) if your tables contain less than 10.000 rows you may simply generate a simple HTML table in a for / while loop as you would for a simple table. Then pass your table's ID to datatable like this:

$(document).ready(function() {
 $('#example').DataTable();
});

But after all, AJAX is created to make world a better place for us. :-)