# DataTables example API

When you use `$().DataTable()`, the returned object is a DataTables API instance, which can be used to control the DataTable. This example matches the row adding example, using jQuery for the initialisation and event handling.

It is worth noting that DataTables will also add a `$().dataTable()` (lower case `d`) method to jQuery, which will initialise a DataTable the same way as `$().DataTable()` but will return a jQuery instance, allowing chaining of jQuery methods if you require.

Column 1 | Column 2 | Column 3 | Column 4 | Column 5
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
Column 1 | Column 2 | Column 3 | Column 4 | Column 5

- JavaScript
- HTML
- CSS
- Ajax
- Server-side script

The JavaScript shown below is used to initialise the table shown in this example:

`var table = $('#example').DataTable(); var counter = 1; $('#addRow').on('click', function () { table.row .add([ counter + '.1', counter + '.2', counter + '.3', counter + '.4', counter + '.5' ]) .draw(false); counter++; }); // Automatically add a first row of data $('#addRow').trigger('click');`

In addition to the above code, the following JavaScript library files are loaded for use in this example:

The HTML shown below is the raw HTML table element, before it has been enhanced by DataTables:

This example uses a little bit of additional CSS beyond what is loaded from the library files (below), in order to correctly display the table. The additional CSS used is shown below:

``

The following CSS library files are loaded for use in this example to provide the styling of the table:

This table loads data by Ajax. The latest data that has been loaded is shown below. This data will update automatically as any additional data is loaded.

The script used to perform the server-side processing for this table is shown below. Please note that this is just an example script using PHP. Server-side processing scripts can be written in any language, using the protocol described in the DataTables documentation.