Join tables - one-to-many join

When using joined database tables, there are times when you might wish to use a one-to-many relationship for your data, and display that as an editable interface for your system's users.

On the client-side, Editor achieved this quite simply by making use of DataTables' powerful columns.data and columns.render options to display the data and the fields.name option in Editor. These options all provide the ability to use array based data through Javascript square bracket notation ([]) - see the DataTables columns.data documentation for detailed information on the syntax that can be used for these options.

In this case each record in our users database table can have different access permissions granted. The one-to-many link is provided by a join table on the database side.

For the editing interface Editor presents this as a checkbox list of options which the editor can use to select the options they want to assign to a particular user.

On the server-side the Editor PHP, .NET and NodeJS libraries all provide a Join class that can be used to construct complex CRUD queries for one-to-many data manipulation. For further information about using the libraries to build an editable DataTable with JOINed tables, please see the join documentation (PHP | .NET | NodeJS).

First name	Last name	Location	Permissions
First name	Last name	Location	Permissions

Javascript
HTML
CSS
Ajax
Server-side script
Comments

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

var editor = new DataTable.Editor({
	ajax: '../php/joinArray.php',
	fields: [
		{
			label: 'First name:',
			name: 'users.first_name'
		},
		{
			label: 'Last name:',
			name: 'users.last_name'
		},
		{
			label: 'Site:',
			name: 'users.site',
			type: 'select'
		},
		{
			label: 'Permissions:',
			name: 'permission[].id',
			type: 'checkbox'
		}
	],
	table: '#example'
});

$('#example').DataTable({
	ajax: {
		url: '../php/joinArray.php',
		type: 'POST'
	},
	columns: [
		{ data: 'users.first_name' },
		{ data: 'users.last_name' },
		{ data: 'sites.name' },
		{ data: 'permission', render: '[, ].name' }
	],
	layout: {
		topStart: {
			buttons: [
				{ extend: 'create', editor: editor },
				{ extend: 'edit', editor: editor },
				{ extend: 'remove', editor: editor }
			]
		}
	},
	select: true
});

const editor = new DataTable.Editor({
	ajax: '../php/joinArray.php',
	fields: [
		{
			label: 'First name:',
			name: 'users.first_name'
		},
		{
			label: 'Last name:',
			name: 'users.last_name'
		},
		{
			label: 'Site:',
			name: 'users.site',
			type: 'select'
		},
		{
			label: 'Permissions:',
			name: 'permission[].id',
			type: 'checkbox'
		}
	],
	table: '#example'
});

new DataTable('#example', {
	ajax: {
		url: '../php/joinArray.php',
		type: 'POST'
	},
	columns: [
		{ data: 'users.first_name' },
		{ data: 'users.last_name' },
		{ data: 'sites.name' },
		{ data: 'permission', render: '[, ].name' }
	],
	layout: {
		topStart: {
			buttons: [
				{ extend: 'create', editor: editor },
				{ extend: 'edit', editor: editor },
				{ extend: 'remove', editor: editor }
			]
		}
	},
	select: true
});

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 interaction for this demo is shown below. This server uses PHP, so the PHP script is shown, however our download packages include the equivalent script for other platforms, including .NET and Node.js. Server-side scripts can be written in any language, using the protocol described in the Editor documentation.

Join tables - one-to-many join

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