Editor example Join tables - self referencing join

Extending the simple join example, here we show how a self referencing SQL table can be used with Editor. Self referencing tables can be very useful when there is a hierarchy of like objects in the database.

In this particular example each staff member has a manager, who is also a member of staff. Using a self referencing join we can display each staff member and their manager in the table, while Editor allows these fields to be easily editable.

In SQL terms, the users table has a column manager which references the id column in its own table. In an SQL statement we use the as keyword to alias the joined table, which is exactly how the Editor server-side libraries also operate.

The data structure returned by the server for each row in this table is:

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{
    "DT_RowId": "row_1",
    "users": {
        "first_name": "Quynn",
        "last_name": "Contreras",
        "manager": "1"
    },
    "manager": {
        "first_name": "Quynn",
        "last_name": "Contreras"
    }
}

The three fields we want to edit are in the users object, but we also use the manager properties for display in the table (through the use of columns.data and columns.render).

See the join documentation (PHP | .NET | NodeJS) for further information about joins with Editor's framework libraries.