Answers

• lordterrin Posts: 22Questions: 10Answers: 1

  December 2016 Answer ✓

  Okay, I figured out a solution.

  First, I created a new sorting variable in PHP when the user searches for multiple things:

  $sort = 0;
  foreach ( $column_ar as $c ) {
    $sort++;
    $sorting_array[$c]  = $sort;
  }
  

  This returns something like this:

  $sorting_array['John'] = 1, $sorting_array['Mike'] = 2 etc etc...

  Then, since DataTables server-side implementation won't allow me to actually SORT on a field that doesn't exist in the database, (or maybe it's the database that won't return values if I try to "sort descending by a column that doesn't exist", if the user chooses to sort by this custom column, I change the sort to something else, run everything, then resort before I display out to the user:

  $filter_on_column_number  = $_POST['order'][0]['column'];
  $filter_on_column_value   = $_POST['columns'][$filter_on_column_number]['data'];
  
  if ( $filter_on_column_number == 15 ) {   #15 is my "custom sort" field
    $multi_search = true;
    $filter_on_column_number  = 10;
    $filter_on_column_value   = 'date_string';  # doesn't matter what this is - as long as it's something that will cause the search to work.
  }  
  

  Once the query runs successfully, I add the sorting data manually into the array. My output array that would normally be echoed back to datatables is called $list, so:

  if ( $sorting_array ) {
    foreach ( $list as &$l ) {    
      $l['custom_sort'] = $sorting_array[$l['part_number_s']];  
    }
    unset($l);
  
    /* since DataTables server-side implementation cannot sort by a field a that doesn't actually exist, we need to resort the array in 
       the user's custom "copy and paste" order: */ 
    if ( $multi_search ) {
      usort($list, function($a, $b) {
        return $a['custom_sort'] - $b['custom_sort'];
      });
    }
  }
  

  Then I output the newly modified $list out back to DataTables, which is none the wiser that I've circumvented its defaults.

  I hope this helps someone who may be looking to do something similar!
• allan Posts: 61,946Questions: 1Answers: 10,158 Site admin

  December 2016

  Thanks for posting back. Great to hear you've got this working and thanks for sharing your solution.

  Allan