Jquery datatables destroy/re-create

Question

I am trying to reload a datatable via a json call. I've using DataTables-1.10.9 and jquery-2.1.4.

I've tried paying with the .ajax API within datatable and got nowhere, so I thought I'd try this approach which I have sued in the past.

If I break when the HTML has been appended to the table, it looks OK (by this, I mean that the old data has been removed, and the new data is showing. But when the $('#tblRemittanceList').dataTable({...}); command is issued again, it 'reloads' the old data, not the new. If I don't use datatables, the raw table shows the correct data.

//----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
function fncOpenRemittancesRead(pFrRem,pToRem) {

    wsUrl = "../Json/OpenRemittances.asp"   +
                    "?qryDatabase="         + encodeURIComponent(wsDatabase)    +
                    "&qryFrRemittance=" + encodeURIComponent(pFrRem)            +
                    "&qryToRemittance=" + encodeURIComponent(pToRem);

    $('body').addClass('waiting');
    $.getJSON(wsUrl, function(data) {
        fncOpenRemittancesFill(data);
        $('body').removeClass('waiting');
    });
}

//----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
function fncOpenRemittancesFill(pData) {
    var wsHtml = '';

    $('#tblRemittanceList tbody').empty();

    for (var i = 0; i < pData.length; i++) {
        wsHtml += '<tr>';
        wsHtml += '<td>' + trim(pData[i].col_1) + '</td>';
        wsHtml += '<td>' + trim(pData[i].col_2) + '</td>';
        wsHtml += '<td>' + trim(pData[i].col_3) + '</td>';
        wsHtml += '<td>' + fncFormatDate(pData[i].col_4,4) + '</td>';
        wsHtml += '<td>' + fncFormatNumber(pData[i].col_5,2,"N") + '</td>';
        wsHtml += '<td>' + trim(pData[i].col_6) + '</td>';
        wsHtml += '<td>' + fncFormatNumber(pData[i].col_7,2,"N") + '</td>';
        wsHtml += '<td>' + trim(pData[i].col_8) + '</td>';
        wsHtml += '</tr>';
    }

    $('#tblRemittanceList > tbody:last').append(wsHtml);

    $('#tblRemittanceList').dataTable({
          "autoWidth":false
        , "destroy":true
        , "info":false
        , "JQueryUI":true
        , "ordering":true
        , "paging":false
        , "scrollY":"500px"
        , "scrollCollapse":true
    });

}

Answer 1

CAUSE

When DataTables destroys the table because of the option destroy:true it restores original content and discards the content that you've generated.

SOLUTION #1

Remove destroy:true option and destroy the table before you manipulate the table with destroy() API method.

if ( $.fn.DataTable.isDataTable('#tblRemittanceList') ) {
  $('#tblRemittanceList').DataTable().destroy();
}

$('#tblRemittanceList tbody').empty();

// ... skipped ...

$('#tblRemittanceList').dataTable({
      "autoWidth":false, 
      "info":false, 
      "JQueryUI":true, 
      "ordering":true, 
      "paging":false, 
      "scrollY":"500px", 
      "scrollCollapse":true
});

SOLUTION #2

Remove destroy:true option and instead of destroying and recreating the table use clear() to clear the table content, rows.add() to add the table data and then draw() to re-draw the table.

In this case you would need to initialize DataTables once on page initialization.