Adding a column from a remote source

Adding a column from a remote source (AJAX) is simple with the columns() API.

Let's say you've selected a column from your MySQL table and you want to include it in your datatable instance. You can encode the column data as a JSON string and fetch it:

{
    heading: "Progress"
    data: [
        "37%",
        "97%",
        "63%",
        "30%",
        ...
    ]
}

var addNewColumn = function() {
	
    var columnData = "remote/data/url";

    var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();	
	
    xhr.addEventListener("load", function(e) {
        if (xhr.readyState === 4) {
            if (xhr.status === 200) {
                // Parse the JSON string
                var data = JSON.parse(xhr.responseText);

                // Insert the new column
                datatable.columns().add(data);
            }
        }
    });

    xhr.open('GET', columnData);
    xhr.send();
};