Format output data - orthogonal data

Buttons has two different methods that can be used to format the data exported differently from the data that is shown in the table: orthogonal options as shown in this example and formatting functions. They both achieve basically the same thing in different ways: namely modification of the output data.

The orthogonal options are based upon DataTables' support for orthogonal data - specifically being able to use columns.render as an object for function to give DataTables different data for the different actions it needs to take.

By default Buttons will ask for the same data that is shown in the table (display) but the orthogonal option of the exportOptions parameter can be used to specify a different data point. In this example the orthogonal data for the exported buttons is set to be export and the columns.render function will return a deformatted string (stripping the $ and , characters from the final column to make it a numeric value).

Name	Position	Office	Extn.	Start date	Salary
Name	Position	Office	Extn.	Start date	Salary

Javascript
HTML
CSS
Ajax
Server-side script
Comments

The Javascript shown below is used to initialise the table shown in this example:

$('#example').DataTable({
	ajax: '../../../../examples/ajax/data/objects.txt',
	columns: [
		{ data: 'name' },
		{ data: 'position' },
		{ data: 'office' },
		{ data: 'extn' },
		{ data: 'start_date' },
		{
			data: 'salary',
			render: function (data, type, row) {
				return type === 'export' ? data.replace(/[$,]/g, '') : data;
			}
		}
	],
	layout: {
		topStart: {
			buttons: [
				{
					extend: 'copyHtml5',
					exportOptions: { orthogonal: 'export' }
				},
				{
					extend: 'excelHtml5',
					exportOptions: { orthogonal: 'export' }
				},
				{
					extend: 'pdfHtml5',
					exportOptions: { orthogonal: 'export' }
				}
			]
		}
	}
});

new DataTable('#example', {
	ajax: '../../../../examples/ajax/data/objects.txt',
	columns: [
		{ data: 'name' },
		{ data: 'position' },
		{ data: 'office' },
		{ data: 'extn' },
		{ data: 'start_date' },
		{
			data: 'salary',
			render: function (data, type, row) {
				return type === 'export' ? data.replace(/[$,]/g, '') : data;
			}
		}
	],
	layout: {
		topStart: {
			buttons: [
				{
					extend: 'copyHtml5',
					exportOptions: { orthogonal: 'export' }
				},
				{
					extend: 'excelHtml5',
					exportOptions: { orthogonal: 'export' }
				},
				{
					extend: 'pdfHtml5',
					exportOptions: { orthogonal: 'export' }
				}
			]
		}
	}
});

In addition to the above code, the following Javascript library files are loaded for use in this example:

The HTML shown below is the raw HTML table element, before it has been enhanced by DataTables:

This example uses a little bit of additional CSS beyond what is loaded from the library files (below), in order to correctly display the table. The additional CSS used is shown below:

The following CSS library files are loaded for use in this example to provide the styling of the table:

This table loads data by Ajax. The latest data that has been loaded is shown below. This data will update automatically as any additional data is loaded.

The script used to perform the server-side processing for this table is shown below. Please note that this is just an example script using PHP. Server-side processing scripts can be written in any language, using the protocol described in the DataTables documentation.

Format output data - orthogonal data

Other examples

Basic initialisation

HTML 5 data export

Column visibility

Print

API

Split buttons

Styling

DataTables