jQuery Grid Plugin - jqGrid

Tony,

I was able to achieve my desired result by changing line 122 of grid.inlinedit.js (should that name be inlineedit?) from...

if(tmp) { tmp["id"] = rowid; ....

to

if(tmp) { tmp[$t.p.jsonReader.id] = rowid; ....

but I don't think this is a real solution as it relies on the presence of the jsonReader object.  Still, something like this is needed to get rid of the magic 'id', don't you think?  Perhaps a test for a name before defaulting to 'id'?

-- John

Tony,

The problem is that if I have a table with a column named 'id', that column cannot be edited.  Generally, speaking the POST data sent to the server in insert and update are the column names and their values, but anything jqGrid adds to this data('id', e.g.) is added into the same namespace where collision is possible and special handling is required as indicated by the $exceptions list of fields in the server.php example.

For specific tables where 'id' is a column name, special handling at the server could select 'id' as somethingElse but it seems a more general solution is to separate these name spaces.

One possibility is to send only two variables via Ajax; the row data and other meta-data.  Or, perhaps, to put all row data into a json string or XML document and pass it as a single variable.

In this way, jqGrid would never have a conflict with a column name.  Do you agree?

Thanks!

-- John

Hello, Tony!

I do understand what you are saying. I have already used the extra parameters to communicate both the table name and primary column name.  The problem is purely in the collision between the jqGrid use of the 'id' keyword for the primary key value and a database column of the same name.

Here is an example using the 'invheader' test table.  My saveRow() code is...

jQuery(gridName).saveRow(rowID, '', 'tableEditor.php',

    { jqGridOp : 'updateRow', jqGridTable : tableName, jqGridUIDCol : UIDColumnName },
    aftersavefunc);

saveRow() generates a POST array which looks like
{"invdate"=>"2009-02-10", "client_id"=>"10", "amount"=>"123.45", "tax"=>"10.11", "total"=>"133.56", "note"=>"Test 1", "id"=>"1", "jqGridOp"=>"updateRow", "jqGridTable"=>"invheader", "jqGridUIDCol"=>"invid"}

So I use my 'jqGridUIDCol' as the name of the primary key column and the 'id' column as its value.  Problem solved as long as there is no other column in the table with the name 'id'.  If I change the name of the 'client_id' column in the database to 'id' and my jsonReader to

jsonReader: {
    root: 'rows',
    page: 'page',
    total: 'total',
    records: 'records',
    repeatitems: true,
    cell: 'cell',
    id: 'jqGridUIDVal'
},

The POST array generated by saveRow is {"invdate"=>"2009-02-10", "id"=>"1", "amount"=>"123.45", "tax"=>"10.11", "total"=>"133.56", "note"=>"Test 1", "jqGridOp"=>"updateRow", "jqGridTable"=>"invheader", "jqGridUIDCol"=>"invid"}.

Notice that there are now only 9 elements in the array.  The 'id' column again contains the primary key value, but the value for the non-key 'id' column (the one which was 'client_id') is lost because of the name collision.

I can see several ways to work around this.

(1) Modify the server code to detect and avoid conflicting names.  PRO - no change to jqGrid.  CON - must know all keywords ('oper', for example) used during an update or insert operation (the $exclusions) and change server code if jqGrid changes.

(2) Modify jqGrid to reference a keywords object when generating the GET/POST data which could be rewritten by the user if needed.  For example

var keywords {jqGridID : "id", jqGridOper : "oper"...};

PRO - no change to installed code.  Only minor modifications to jqGrid. All keywords are present in an object which can be transmitted to the server for exclusion handling.  CON - Modifications to jqGrid needed.

(3) Add a rowset (or other) keyword to contain all the row col/value pairs.  Leave other keywords/values as currently generated and deprecate.

PRO - complete separation of namespaces between rowset data and metadata. Existing code only lightly affected (must know to ignore the 'rowset' keyword).  Once converted, server code is more effectively separated from jqGrid.  CON - existing code may be affected.  More substantial code change to jqGrid.  Not as simple an interface to the server.

IMHO, choice (3) is the best.  Choice (2) does provide enough data to be able to detect the problem and a means for an easy work-around.

Thanks!

-- John

Tony,

I added the { key : true } to my colModel object for my key column giving...

{ name: 'invid', index: 'invid', editable: false, key: true, width: 66, align: 'right' }

... and reran my test with a non-key column named 'id' (not the primary key).  The results were the same.  The POST array had an 'id' key with the primary key in it.  There was no 'invid' key.

Did I understand your suggestion correctly?

Thanks,

-- JOhn