Preamble

The "native" data format that DataTables expects for server-side processing is a 2D array of data (rows by columns). However, this is often not flexible enough for either the server-side environment, or you might want to convey more information in the data source than is necessary to show in the table (row IDs from the database for example). For this DataTables supports the reading of data for objects as well as arrays.

In this example the server responds with an array of objects, and DataTables will look up each property that is specified by the mData property given for each column

Live example

Initialisation code

$(document).ready(function() {
	$('#example').dataTable( {
		"bProcessing": true,
		"bServerSide": true,
		"sAjaxSource": "scripts/objects.php",
		"aoColumns": [
			{ "mData": "engine" },
			{ "mData": "browser" },
			{ "mData": "platform" },
			{ "mData": "version" },
			{ "mData": "grade" }
		]
	} );
} );

Server response

The code below shows the latest JSON data that has been returned from the server in response to the Ajax request made by DataTables. This will update as further requests are made.

Other examples