Why is the API context element an array? When would there ever be more than 1 element?
Why is the API context element an array? When would there ever be more than 1 element?
jLinux
Posts: 981Questions: 73Answers: 75
This is really just out of curiosity, but when I initiate a table and poke around the DataTables object, I find the context element:
var dt = new $.fn.dataTable.Api( '#example' )
dt.context // Array
dt.context[0] // Object
dt.context[0].sTableId // "example"
My question is: is there a reason that dt.context doesn't go right to the object currently stored at dt.context[0]? I'm assuming theres some logical reason that context is an array, I just don't see at the moment and thought id ask.
Thanks!
-J
P.S. HI ALLAN! Long time no talk. Hope all is well.
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Answers
Hi - good to hear from you again. Yup, all going well here thanks - hope likewise with yourself!
The DataTables API is capaible of operating on multiple tables at a time, which is why the
context(i.e. basically the settings object for the tables) can be an array.e.g.
$('.dataTable').DataTable().data()will get the data from all DataTables on the page, not just a single one.Sometimes its useful, sometimes not! It felt right to generalised it to allow for multiple tables though.
Allan
All is well. Im noticing that I have a ton of alerts on here and in my DataTables related plugins at Github, so spending some time trying to take care of those.... And I do miss working with DataTables :-D lol
How does that work if the two contexts are nested under the
var dt = new $.fn.dataTable.Api( '#example' )part? One would think that the variabledtnow only points to the#exampletable.If you have time, do you think you can provide an example where it could be leveraged appropriately? (Not if itll take too much of your time. I know you're a busy guy)
P.S. I thought of another plugin, similar to my DT Keep Conditions plugin - where the developer can basically code table conditions that will be indexed by strings for shortcuts. So you could link someone to
#Table1=goto:TopUsersfor example, and it would automatically implement the table conditions (search, sorting, etc) that would show the top users. Whatcha think?Correct. With an ID selector it will result ins a single context only. If you use some other selector such as class selector, it can pick up multiple tables:
var dts = new $.fn.dataTable.Api( '.dataTable' );for example.You could use that to filter all tables on the page:
dts.search('Hello').draw(). Example: http://live.datatables.net/kurohaqe/1/edit .Your plug-in idea sounds like an interesting one. Deep linking can often be useful.
Allan
Got it. Thanks for clarifying!