DataTables dynamic creation example

Preamble

At times you will wish to be able to create a table from dynamic information passed directly to DataTables, rather than having it read from the document. This is achieved using the "aaData" array in the initialisation object. A table node must first be created before the initialiser is called (as shown in the code below). This is also useful for optimisation - if you are able to format the data as required, this method can save a lot of DOM parsing to create a table.

Live example

EngineBrowserPlatformVersionGrade
GeckoFirefox 1.0Win 98+ / OSX.2+1.7A
GeckoFirefox 1.5Win 98+ / OSX.2+1.8A
GeckoFirefox 2.0Win 98+ / OSX.2+1.8A
GeckoFirefox 3.0Win 2k+ / OSX.3+1.9A
GeckoCamino 1.0OSX.2+1.8A
GeckoCamino 1.5OSX.3+1.8A
GeckoNetscape 7.2Win 95+ / Mac OS 8.6-9.21.7A
GeckoNetscape Browser 8Win 98SE+1.7A
GeckoNetscape Navigator 9Win 98+ / OSX.2+1.8A
GeckoMozilla 1.0Win 95+ / OSX.1+1A
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Initialisation code

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$(document).ready(function() {
    $('#demo').html( '<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" class="display" id="example"></table>' );
    $('#example').dataTable( {
        "aaData": [
            /* Reduced data set */
            [ "Trident", "Internet Explorer 4.0", "Win 95+", 4, "X" ],
            [ "Trident", "Internet Explorer 5.0", "Win 95+", 5, "C" ],
            [ "Trident", "Internet Explorer 5.5", "Win 95+", 5.5, "A" ],
            [ "Trident", "Internet Explorer 6.0", "Win 98+", 6, "A" ],
            [ "Trident", "Internet Explorer 7.0", "Win XP SP2+", 7, "A" ],
            [ "Gecko", "Firefox 1.5", "Win 98+ / OSX.2+", 1.8, "A" ],
            [ "Gecko", "Firefox 2", "Win 98+ / OSX.2+", 1.8, "A" ],
            [ "Gecko", "Firefox 3", "Win 2k+ / OSX.3+", 1.9, "A" ],
            [ "Webkit", "Safari 1.2", "OSX.3", 125.5, "A" ],
            [ "Webkit", "Safari 1.3", "OSX.3", 312.8, "A" ],
            [ "Webkit", "Safari 2.0", "OSX.4+", 419.3, "A" ],
            [ "Webkit", "Safari 3.0", "OSX.4+", 522.1, "A" ]
        ],
        "aoColumns": [
            { "sTitle": "Engine" },
            { "sTitle": "Browser" },
            { "sTitle": "Platform" },
            { "sTitle": "Version", "sClass": "center" },
            { "sTitle": "Grade", "sClass": "center" }
        ]
    } );   
} );

Other examples

Basic initialisation

Advanced initialisation

API

Data sources

Server-side processing

Ajax data source

Plug-ins