Answers

• colin Posts: 15,177Questions: 1Answers: 2,590

  February 2021

  We're happy to take a look, but as per the forum rules, please link to a test case - a test case that replicates the issue will ensure you'll get a quick and accurate response. Information on how to create a test case (if you aren't able to link to the page you are working on) is available here.

  Cheers,

  Colin
• ffe Posts: 28Questions: 4Answers: 0

  February 2021 edited February 2021

  Hi Colin,

  I created a test case: http://live.datatables.net/kuqawedu/2/edit?html,js,output

  I added one button for each data-* attribute.

  The question is, must I use the format option, or should it be sufficient to have at least one of the four supported orthogonal data-* attributes?
• colin Posts: 15,177Questions: 1Answers: 2,590

  February 2021

  This is a quick example of using orthogonal data to get the class - http://live.datatables.net/kuqawedu/3/edit .

  I was halfway through this then realised you probably didn't want it that way, but just in case, take a look and see if that works.

  Another option, is in columns.render, the fourth parameter is meta, which contains the row and column numbers. You can use this with cell().node() to get the node for the cell, which you can then extract the data attribute, something like:

  api.cell(meta.row, meta.col).node()).attr('data-export')
  

  I hope one of those two approaches does the trick, if not, reply back,

  Colin
• ffe Posts: 28Questions: 4Answers: 0

  February 2021

  Hm, solving the task with Javascript is not the problem. The forum post I linked to offers a solution with JS too. But in our case, it would be nice to solve it without much JS, as the initialisation seems to stay more general then.

  Let me try to rephrase my question: Assume I use a data-order attribute like in my test case, and I also added the corresponding "exportOptions": { "orthogonal": 'order' } option to the button. Why doesn't the export button use the orthogonal data-order out of the box?

  And thinking further, would it be a good idea to "officially" introduce a new orthogonal type "export", that is used for exports by default?
• allan Posts: 61,972Questions: 1Answers: 10,160 Site admin

  February 2021

  Why doesn't the export button use the orthogonal data-order out of the box?

  Because DataTables doesn't automatically detect all data-* parameters, just the ones that DataTables knows about. This is the code that does that.

  There isn't actually a good way to handle custom attributes at the moment because we just use the default three types that the core uses. This is something we are going to need to think about to allow expansion without effecting speed.

  And thinking further, would it be a good idea to "officially" introduce a new orthogonal type "export", that is used for exports by default?

  We've thought about that - but the majority of the time the data folk want to export is what is seen in the table. Thus it defaults to display with the option to override it if required.

  Regards,
  Allan
• ffe Posts: 28Questions: 4Answers: 0

  February 2021

  Thanks Allan, your last post has pointed me in the right direction!

  Because DataTables doesn't automatically detect all data-* parameters, just the ones that DataTables knows about. This is the code that does that.

  I already suspected that - The original test case uses a known attribute ("order") and an unknown one ("export").

  But now I realized, the key point is: What are the known data-* attributes? You say the default three sort, type, filter, but what about the aliases order and search? According to the documentation, I expected the aliases to be treated totally equal.

  After changing my test case to some of the first three attributes, export works as expected: http://live.datatables.net/kuqawedu/5/edit?html,js,output

  There isn't actually a good way to handle custom attributes [...] This is something we are going to need to think about to allow expansion without effecting speed.

  Okay, a valid point

  We've thought about that - but the majority of the time the data folk want to export is what is seen in the table. Thus it defaults to display with the option to override it if required.

  Well I think this argument is valid for all of the existing orthogonal data: Most of the time, display is enough Maybe you can add it as feature request and we will be surprised some day in the future

  To conclude my post, I am fine with using the supported data attributes (in contrast to custom attributes), as they will be sufficient most of the time in our case. But in my opinion, it is a bug that data-order and data-search are not supported currently. What do you think?

  Thanks again for your support and keep up the good work!
• allan Posts: 61,972Questions: 1Answers: 10,160 Site admin

  February 2021 Answer ✓

  According to the documentation, I expected the aliases to be treated totally equal.

  Yes, sorry I should of clarified that. The aliases are treated equally. The way it works internally is that the order is mapped to the sort type (likewise for the others) which is just a legacy thing to keep the code half way sane.

  The result of that is that you still need to use the old style naming for the orthogonal option - e.g.:

   "orthogonal": 'filter'
  

  event although the attribute might be data-order. I agree that is confusing and the orthogonal fetch should support the alias as well.

  Regards,
  Allan
• ffe Posts: 28Questions: 4Answers: 0

  February 2021

  Thanks for the clarification, Allan.
• ffe Posts: 28Questions: 4Answers: 0

  July 2021

  I agree that is confusing and the orthogonal fetch should support the alias as well.

  Hi Allan, will it be added to one of the following releases?
• allan Posts: 61,972Questions: 1Answers: 10,160 Site admin

  July 2021 Answer ✓

  Added here: https://github.com/DataTables/DataTablesSrc/commit/aac7a53fa8e74b3594c69b90cd3356726a758d3d . I'll be tagging it up soon.

  Allan
• ffe Posts: 28Questions: 4Answers: 0

  July 2021

  Thanks Allan!
• samraj Posts: 6Questions: 1Answers: 1

  April 23

  Hi Allan can we use this for serverside processing? I have tried but it haven't worked. Can you kindly share an example to use data-* for serverside processing?
• kthorngren Posts: 20,425Questions: 26Answers: 4,794

  April 23

  @samraj what exactly are you having a problem with? Here is an example of using data-order with server side processing.
  https://live.datatables.net/pacugula/1/edit

  Please update the test case to show us what you are having difficulties with.

  Kevin
• samraj Posts: 6Questions: 1Answers: 1

  April 24

  Hi @kthorngren My problem is with Exporting excel. I'm using serverside processing and to get the full data to export I'm using the following code :
  var self = this;
  var oldStart = dt.settings()[0]._iDisplayStart;
  dt.one('preXhr', function (e, s, data) {
  data.start = 0;
  data.length = -1;
  dt.one('preDraw', function (e, settings) {
  $.fn.dataTable.ext.buttons.excelHtml5.action.call(self, e, dt, button, config, cb);
  dt.one('preXhr', function (e, s, data) {
  settings._iDisplayStart = oldStart;
  data.start = oldStart;
  });
  setTimeout(dt.ajax.reload, 0);
  return false;
  });
  });
  dt.ajax.reload();

  I want to use the data-* so that in some column I will be using some svg's. For I want to point to data-* instead of that svg.
• allan Posts: 61,972Questions: 1Answers: 10,160 Site admin

  April 24

  I've never tried it to be honest - if it does a draw, then yes, it probably will work, but if you link to a test case I can take a closer look. That said, I would strongly discourage using this method for export with server-side processing. If you are going to do that, you'd be as well just disabling server-side processing, since you need the full data set at the client-side. When server-side processing, you could create the Excel file server-side.

  Allan