Populate Datatable with Ajax call

Question

I want to display the values into the table using an AJAX call. The code used for it is,

initTable();

function initTable (){
    return $('#exEmpListTable').dataTable({
        "bPaginate": false,
        "sScrollY": "200px",
        "bScrollCollapse": true
    });
}

function tableActions (){
    var oTable = initTable();
    // perform API operations with oTable
    oTable.fnSort( [ [1,'desc']] );
}

$("#btnShowExEmpList").click(function (e){
    var selectedShop = $('#Shop').val();
    if(selectedShop == null){
        alert(" Please select a shop first ");
        return false;
    }
    if(selectedShop != null){
        alert("==== Selected Shop ==== "+selectedShop);
        var $exEmpDialog = $("#Dialog").dialog({
            width :275,
            height: 400,
            resizable: false,
            position: ['top', 200],
            modal: true
        });
        $exEmpDialog.dialog('close');
        $.ajax({
            url : 'empReqCreateNewReq.do',
            data : { getExEmpList: true, SelectedShop : selectedShop, ajaxCall : true },
            method : 'GET',
            dataType : 'json',
            contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
            success : function(data) {
                alert('success === ' +data.exemplist.length);
                alert("======== ELEMENTS ======== "+JSON.stringify(data));
                //rePopulateExEmpList(data);
                //data = JSON.stringify(data);
                $exEmpDialog.dialog('close');
                //$(this).dialog('close')
                var oTable = initTable();
                oTable = $("#exEmpListTable").dataTable();
                //oTable.fnClearTable(0);
                oTable.oData[data];
                oTable.fnDraw();
                $exEmpDialog.dialog('open');
            },
            error : function(xhr, status) {
                alert('Sorry, there was a problem while placing your ajax request. Contact Admin!');
            }
        });
    }
    //$("#Dialog").dialog();
});

While running this, I can see the valus in the alert bot. But after that, it shows an error message that

DataTables warning (table id = 'exEmpListTable'): Cannot reinitialise DataTable.

To retrieve the DataTables object for this table, please pass either no arguments to the dataTable() function, or set bRetrieve to true. Alternatively, to destory the old table and create a new one, set bDestroy to true (note that a lot of changes to the configuration can be made through the API which is usually much faster).

Please help me to solve this problem.

Answer 1

I was having the same problem...I solved by destroying the table each time I need to reload it. I adapted my code to work with yours, so will be something like:

$(document).ready(function(){
  var oTable;

  //reloading table when the button is clicked
  $('#btnShowExEmpList').click(function(){

    //if the table already exists, destroy it
    if (oTable){
      oTable.fnDestroy();
    }

    //initializing the table
    oTable = initTable();
  });

  //initializing the table automatically when the page loads
  $('#btnShowExEmpList').click();
});

And I also think that instead using your success option to reload the data, would be easier if you set some options for your datatable (bServerSide, sAjaxSource, fnServerData, etc).