C# datatables parser

A C# .Net Core Serverside parser for the popuplar jQuery datatables plugin

Supported Platforms

The parser aims to be Database and Provider agnostic. It currently targets Netstandard 1.3. The solution includes tests for:

jQuery Datatables

The jQuery Datatables plugin is a very powerful javascript grid plugin which comes with the following features out of the box:

Using the Parser

Please see the official datatables documentation for examples on setting it up to connect to a serverside datasource.

The following snippets were taken from the aspnet-core-sample project also located in this repository

HomeController.cs

public class HomeController : Controller
{
    private readonly PersonContext _context;

    public HomeController(PersonContext context)
    {
        _context = context;
    }
    public IActionResult Index()
    {
        return View();
    }

    public IActionResult Data()
    {
        var parser = new Parser<Person>(Request.Form, _context.People);

        return Json(parser.Parse());
    }
}

Startup.cs

    public IServiceProvider ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
    {
    
        services.AddDbContext<PersonContext>(options => options.UseInMemoryDatabase("aspnet-core-websample"));

        services.AddMvc()
                .AddJsonOptions(options =>
                {
                    options.SerializerSettings.ContractResolver = new DefaultContractResolver();
                });
                
        return services.BuildServiceProvider();
    }

Index.cshtml

    @{
        ViewData["title"] = "People Table";
    }

    <h2>Index</h2>
    <table class="table table-bordered " id="PeopleListTable"></table>

    @section Scripts
    {
        <script type="text/javascript">
            $(function () {
                var peopleList = $('#PeopleListTable').DataTable({
                    serverSide: true,
                    processing: true,

                    ajax: {
                        url: '@Url.Action("Data", "Home")',
                        type: "POST"
                    },
                    columns: [
                        { data: "FirstName", title: "First Name" },
                        { data: "LastName", title: "Last Name" },
                        { data: "BirthDateFormatted", title: "Birth Date", orderData: 3 }, //Allow post TSQL server side processing
                        { data: "BirthDate", visible: false },
                        { data: "Weight", title: "Weight" },
                        { data: "Height", title: "Height" },
                        { data: "Children", title: "Children" }

                    ]
                });
            });
        </script>


    }

The included Dockerfile builds, packages and runs the web sample project in a docker image. No tools, frameworks or runtimes are required on the host machine. The image has been published to docker for your convenience.

docker run -p 80:80 garvincasimir/datatables-aspnet-core-sample:0.0.2

Installation

Visual Studio

You can search using the NuGet package manager, or you can enter the following command in your package manager console:

PM> Install-Package DatatablesParser-core

Visual Studio Code

Use the built in terminal and run the following command:

dotnet add package DatatablesParser-core

Testing

This solution is configured to run tests using xunit. However, the MySql and Sql Server entity tests require a running server. You can use the included db.yaml docker compose file to quickly provision test db servers.

docker-compose -f db.yaml up -d --force-recreate
# Wait for containers to initialize then run tests 
dotnet test

Contributions, comments, changes, issues

I welcome any suggestions for improvement, contributions, questions or issues with using this code.

Contact

Twitter: garvincasimir Google+: garvincasimir