Patch for JSON/AJAX Data Source

Thanks for the excellent work, frobinrobin! I've had a little time to look through the patch, but haven't had a chance to apply it to test yet. There is a branch open in the repo to include ajax handling within DataTables (https://drupal.org/node/652800/git-instructions/ajax), would you mind taking a look to see if there's anything useful in that branch for you (it's been awhile since I've had a chance to work on it)?

I should have some time in the next few days to take a look at this fully.

Thanks!

Starting to review this patch. A couple of notes:

I get this error with a basic view with no filters:

Notice: Undefined property: view::$exposed_input in template_preprocess_datatables_view() (line 373 of datatables.module).

+++ b/views/datatables.views.inc
@@ -28,5 +28,43 @@ function datatables_views_plugins() {
+ * Implementation of hook_views_query_alter

Should be:

Implements hook_views_query_alter().

+++ b/views/datatables.views.inc
@@ -28,5 +28,43 @@ function datatables_views_plugins() {
+  // do nothing if not enabled

Capitalize first word and end in period

+++ b/views/datatables.views.inc
@@ -28,5 +28,43 @@ function datatables_views_plugins() {
+    // enforce the settings from the view for dataable paths

Capitalize first word and end in period. misspelled datatable

+++ b/views/datatables_style_plugin.inc
@@ -173,5 +179,19 @@ class datatables_style_plugin extends views_plugin_style_table {
+    $form['datasources']['ajax_defer'] = array(
+      '#type' => 'checkbox',
+      '#title' => t('sAjaxSource by this module'),
+      '#default_value' => !empty($this->options['datasources']['ajax_defer']),
+      '#description' => t('Do not render within the view but request data as Ajax request.'),

This title and description could use a little work. Maybe something like:

Title: Use AJAX
Description: Render results using AJAX instead of rendering all results initially. Useful when loading tables with lots of results.

+++ b/views/views_plugin_cache_defer.inc
@@ -0,0 +1,173 @@
+  function option_definition() {
+		$options = parent::option_definition();
+		return $options;
+	}
+	function options_form(&$form, &$form_state) {
+		parent::options_form($form, $form_state);
+  }

Use spaces instead of tabs.

+++ b/views/views_plugin_cache_defer.inc
@@ -0,0 +1,173 @@
+  function options_validate(&$form, &$form_state) {
+    //dpm($form_state, 'validating');
+  }

Remove method from class (not needed?)

+++ b/views/views_plugin_cache_defer.inc
@@ -0,0 +1,173 @@
+   * Implementation of get_output_key

Should be:

Implements parent::get_output_key().

+++ b/views/views_plugin_cache_defer.inc
@@ -0,0 +1,173 @@
+	/**
+   * Return a string to display as the clickable title for the
+   * access control.
+   */
+  function summary_title() {
+		$parent_title = parent::summary_title();
+  	return t('Duration !parent', array('!parent' => $parent_title));

Whitespace issues (trailing whitespace and tabs instead of spaces)

+++ b/views/views_plugin_cache_defer.inc
@@ -0,0 +1,173 @@
+  /**
+   * Initialize the plugin.
+   *
+   * @param view $view
+   *   The view object.
+   * @param views_plugin_display $display
+   *   The display handler.
+   */
+  function init(&$view, &$display) {
+  	parent::init($view, $display);

Use spaces instead of tabs

+++ b/views/views_plugin_cache_defer.inc
@@ -0,0 +1,173 @@
+   * validate exposed form data, only returning what we expect

Capitalize first word and end in period

+++ b/views/views_plugin_cache_defer.inc
@@ -0,0 +1,173 @@
+   * Because we're now caching "per filter", it's a good idea to set the cache ¶

Trailing whitespace.

+++ b/views/views_plugin_cache_defer.inc
@@ -0,0 +1,173 @@
+   * Obviouslya correctly configured CRON is required to clear stale cache

*Obviously

+++ b/views/views_plugin_cache_defer.inc
@@ -0,0 +1,173 @@
+    // just add our check and set duration here

Capitalize first word and end in period

Also, it looks like the AJAX callback returns all results, and doesn't take advantage of paging. It would be much better if it was able to use true AJAX for rendering results (i.e. only returns first x results, then pages through next results using AJAX). I tested with 10,000 entries and it took 7 seconds to load up.

Overall though this is looking like a very promising patch. I like your approach with using the views cache system to generate the query.

I'll be reviewing the JS next (this was all I could get to today).

Thanks for your work frobinrobin!

Are you still able to release that patch? I may have a good use case.

Just looking on your patch I saw that you were at the end dropping the data as a "download" but running the render method ? The is definetly really slow as the template rendering will be get involved. Datatable can pretty easily work just with a JSON output.
As a first starting point I made a couple of modifications to the "ajax function" which creates the output.

function datatables_ajax($viewname, $display) {
  // retrieve the view and display
  $view = views_get_view($viewname);
  $view->init();
  $view->set_display($display);
  // localize $_GET for args and filters
  $get = $_GET;
  unset($get['q']);
  // get the arguments
  if (!empty($get['args'])) {
    $view->set_arguments($_GET['args']);
    unset($get['args']);
  }
  // get the rest of the filters
  if (!empty($get)) {
    foreach ($get AS $gk => $gv) {
      $view->exposed_input[$gk] = $gv;
    }
  }
  $style = $view->display_handler->get_plugin('style');
  // Set any pagination from datatables.
  if ($style->options['datasources']['server_processing']) {
    if (isset($_GET['iDisplayStart'])) {
      $view->set_offset($_GET['iDisplayStart']);
    }
    if (isset($_GET['iDisplayLength'])) {
      $view->set_items_per_page($_GET['iDisplayLength']);
    }
  }
  // Hide filters by exposing to block.
  $view->display_handler->override_option('exposed_block', array('default' => TRUE));
  // Execute view.
  $view->pre_execute();
  // this is important to let the view re-calculate the total-count !
  $view->get_total_rows = TRUE;
  $view->execute();
   
  // this is the output that the Datatables lib is
  // especting !
  // there is a problem that the view will do a fetchObject
  // but we would like to have an array. so lets strip this down
  $resData = array();
  foreach ($view->result as $rowObject)
  {
  	$resData[] = array_values((array)$rowObject);
  }
  
  $output['sEcho'] = isset($_GET['sEcho']) ? intval($_GET['sEcho']) : "";
  // as in the datatables docs iTotalRecords is the number of rows WITHOUT
  // filering and iTotalDisplayRecords is the filtered count. I do not
  // assume that we should stay with noth being the same
  $output['iTotalRecords'] = $view->total_rows;
  $output['iTotalDisplayRecords'] = $view->total_rows;
  $output['aaData'] = $resData;
  
  drupal_json_output($output);
  drupal_exit();
}

So feel free to add this to your patch also !

This issue definitely still needs some work (at least an answer to CarstenHarnisch's question) - and the correct status here is "needs work". "Needs review" means that there's a working patch awaiting for testing & committing if working well.

Hi,

I get the latest ajax enabled datatables from the git using command
git clone --branch ajax http://git.drupal.org/project/datatables.git.

But i want to populate the json in view . how can i do that . please provide some inputs.

Thanks & Regards
Nitesh

Hi,

Does any one integrated this patch to Datatables.if so could you please give some instructions on how to intrgrate this patch to existing datatables in drupal

With the patch in #10, I was seeing lots of this error:

• Notice: Undefined index: datasources in datatables_views_query_alter()

Here's an update patch which fixes that error (just a one line change on line 360 of the patch, if you want to compare them).

It looks like the JS no-longer applies.

patching file datatables.module
Hunk #2 succeeded at 251 (offset 2 lines).
Hunk #3 succeeded at 267 (offset 2 lines).
Hunk #4 succeeded at 388 (offset 26 lines).
Hunk #5 succeeded at 442 (offset 26 lines).
patching file js/datatables.js
Hunk #1 FAILED at 3.
1 out of 2 hunks FAILED -- saving rejects to file js/datatables.js.rej
patching file views/datatables.views.inc
patching file views/datatables_style_plugin.inc
Hunk #3 succeeded at 45 with fuzz 2 (offset 3 lines).
Hunk #4 succeeded at 186 (offset 4 lines).
patching file views/views_plugin_cache_defer.inc

If someone is looking for datatables ajax server side and Deferred rendering for speed use my custom module https://www.drupal.org/node/2845642
it support ajax for big data i tested with 10K lines

rerolled

We should reroll the patch against latest 7.x 2.x dev

@lazzyvn: please let's merge forces and stop posting your sandbox project in every issue of this project. This isn't very helpful. Thanks for understanding.

Due to inactivity for years and because of upcoming EOL of Drupal 7 I set it to Closed to cleanup the issue queue. Thanks for taking the time to report and all the hard work here from so many awesome users here and maintainers on this! Read more about EOL of D7 here: https://www.drupal.org/about/drupal-7/d7eol/partners

If this feature is still missing/required/wanted or somebody has some time and can reroll the patch against latest dev branch (2.x) feel free to reopen it.