jquery datatables updating a cell

Question

Hi there.

I have a table set out like:

<table id="myTable">
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <td><input type="checkbox" id="selectall" /></td>
      <td>Column 1</td>
      <td>Column 2</td>
      <td>Column 3</td>
      <td>Column 4</td>
      <td>Column 5</td>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
  </tbody>
</table>

Then, the javascript:

var myTable = jQuery('#myTable').dataTable({
    /* options */
});

// Ajax request to populate:
jQuery.get('script.php', function(data){
    eval("rows="+data);
    for(var i=0;i<rows.length;i++){
        myTable.fnAddData([
          "<input type=\"checkbox\" id=\""+rows[i].uniqueID+"\" />",
          rows[i].col1Txt,
          rows[i].col2Txt,
          rows[i].col3Txt,
          rows[i].col4Txt,
          rows[i].col5Txt ]);
    }
});

Now, I am having trouble with updating the table based on which checkboxes are selected:

I am trying to update the 5th cell in each row that is checked. I am using a combination of fnUpdate and fnGetPosition (http://www.datatables.net/api).

fnGetPosition expects the td or tr element, so I thought I'd just grab the parent td of the checkboxes:

var checkBoxes = jQuery('td > input:checked', myTable);
for(var i=0;i<checkBoxes.length;i++){
    var parentTD = jQuery('#'+checkBoxes[i].id).parent(); //seems wrong?
    var pos = myTable.fnGetPosition(parentTD);
    //alert(pos[0]);
    myTable.fnUpdate('Updated text', pos[0], 5);
}

But I must be doing parentTD wrong since pos never seems to hold a value.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

you can use the each function to iterate over a jQuery object, its easier than using the for loop.

Also, I think that you can optomise your selector to get you the td elements instead of geting the checked inputs.

It will be a lot more performant as it should remove 2 selectors in every operation. I haven't tried it but something like this should work

var checkBoxes = jQuery('td:has(input:checked):not(#selectall)', myTable);
checkboxes.each(function(){
    var pos = myTable.fnGetPosition($(this)); // Im not familiar with the plugin so the extra $() might be overkill
    alert(pos) // maybe run this alert again, check if you get back an object/value? use firebug to debug and see its value?
    myTable.fnUpdate('Updated text', pos[0], 5);
});