README

PHP class for displaying Eloquent collections as HTML table. Tested in Laravel, but should work in any project using eloquent as standalone package.

Installation

Download and require Datatable.php and DatatableActions.php. or install it via composer.

composer require bogdanpet/eloquent-datatable

Usage

Basic usage

For example, let's say that we have collection of users we want to show as a table. Creating collection and sharing it to your view should look like this in Laravel.

public function showUsers() {
    $users = User::all();

    return view('users', compact('users'));
}

Now, if you are intending to show this collection as HTML table you can do this simply with Datatable class. You can either create new instance or take advantage of laravel's dependency injection.

use Bogdanpet\Datatables\Datatable;

...

public function showUsers(Datatable $datatable) {
    $users = User::all();
    
    $datatable->setData($users);
    $datatable->setColumns(['id, 'name', 'email']);

    return view('users', compact('datatable'));
}

Then, in your blade template, just put table where you want it using show() method.

<div class="table-container">
    {!! $datatable->show(); !!}
</div>

If you need to customize table more, you can use separate methods instead of show() method.

<div class="table-container">
    {!! $datatable->open(['class' => 'table-responsive']); // Generate opening <table> tag with optional attributes. !!}
    {!! $datatable->tableHead(); // Generate table column headings. !!}
    {!! $datatable->tableBody(); // Generate main table rows. !!}
    {!! $datatable->tableFoot(); // Generate table footer. !!}
    {!! $datatable->close(); // Generate closing </table> tag. !!}
    {!! $datatable->pagination(); // Generate pagination links if you are using User::paginate() to create collection !!}
</div>

Static usage

For quick building of datatable in your view, if you already have access to collection, you can create table directly with static method make().

<div class="table-container">
    {!! \Bogdanpet\Datatables\Datatable::make($users, ['id, 'name', 'email'] !!}
</div>

Datatable actions

For generating action links I provided custom column 'actions'. For example, if you want to create links to edit and delete user from database, you can add 'actions' to columns and then set actions.

$datatable->setColumns(['id, 'name', 'email', 'actions']);
$datatable->setActions([
    [ 'Edit', '/user/edit/{id}', ['class' => 'table-action'] ],
    [ 'Delete', '/user/delete/{id}', ['class' => 'table-action'] ]
]);

As you can see, actions are set as array of arrays, each array contains link text as first item, route as second and optional third item which is array of link attributes. {id} is wildcard for laravel routing system, and will be replaced with corresponding user's id from the database. You can use wildcard for any database column like {name} or {email}. Example above will generate two links for each user in actions column.

<a href="/user/edit/23" class="table-action">Edit</a>
<a href="/user/delete/23" class="table-action">Delete</a>

Advanced usage

For complete control over your datatable you can extend main Datatable class. For example, Let's create UsersDatatable class.

<?php namespace App\Datatables;

class UsersDatatable extends \Bogdanpet\Datatables\Datatable
{
    /**
     * DatatableActions trait allows use of actions.
     */
    use \Bogdanpet\Datatables\DatatableActions;

    /**
     * Define columns to be displayed by datatable.
     */
    protected $columns = [
        'row_num',
        'name',
        'email',
        'actions'
    ];
    
    /**
     * Define datatable actions.
     */
    protected $actions = [
        [ 'Edit', '/user/edit/{id}', ['class' => 'table-action'] ],
        [ 'Delete', '/user/delete/{id}', ['class' => 'table-action'] ]
    ]
}

After class is created, it can be used same as main class. Just no need for defining columns and actions. Main data can also be defined, but it is not recommended because of its dynamic behavior.

use App\Datatables\UsersDatatable;

...

public function showUsers(UsersDatatable $users_datatable) {
    $users = User::all();
    
    $users_datatable->setData($users);

    return view('users', compact('users_datatable'));
}

And, same as in first example, just place the datatable where you want to.

<div class="table-container">
    {!! $users_datatable->show(); !!}
</div>

'row_num', like 'actions', is predefined custom column which generate number of row in a table. You can also add your own custom columns or customize existing ones using 'th' and 'td' methods. Let's add new custom column 'registered_at' and customize 'name' column in our UsersDatatable class above.

<?php namespace App\Datatables;

class UsersDatatable extends \Bogdanpet\Datatables\Datatable
{
    /**
     * DatatableActions trait allows use of actions.
     */
    use \Bogdanpet\Datatables\DatatableActions;

    /**
     * Define columns to be displayed by datatable.
     */
    protected $columns = [
        'row_num',
        'name',
        'email',
        'registered_at',
        'actions'
    ];
    
    /**
     * Define datatable actions.
     */
    protected $actions = [
        [ 'Edit', '/user/edit/{id}', ['class' => 'table-action'] ],
        [ 'Delete', '/user/delete/{id}', ['class' => 'table-action'] ]
    ]
    
    /**
     * Tweaks the heading for column 'name'
     */
    public function thName()
    {
        return $this->th('Name', 'table-heading-large'); // th() generate <th> element, parameters are content, and optional classes.
    }
    
    /**
     * Tweaks the heading for column 'registered_at'
     */
    public function thRegisteredAt()
    {
        return $this->th('Registered', 'table-heading-small'); // th() generate <th> element, parameters are content, and optional classes.
    }
    
    /**
     * Tweaks the display of 'name' name column
     */
    public function tdName($model)
    {
        // Customize 'name' column to display names with capitalized letters.
        return $this->td( ucwords($model->name), 'table-cell-large'); // td() generate <td> element, parameters are content, and optional classes.
    }
    
    /**
     * Tweaks the display of 'registered_at' name column
     */
    public function tdRegisteredAt($model)
    {
        // 'registered_at' now displays user's creation date and time in human readable format.
        return $this->td( $model->created_at->toDayDateTimeString(), 'table-cell-small');
    }
    
}