HierarchicalDataSource Overview

The Kendo UI HierarchicalDataSource component extends the DataSource component and allows the representation of hierarchical data.

This article assumes that you are familiar with the Kendo UI DataSource, and builds upon that knowledge with specific information about hierarchical data.

Binding to Local Data

The following example demonstrates how to create a HierarchicalDataSource component and bind it to local data.

var categorizedMovies = [ {
      categoryName: "SciFi",
      items: [
        { title: "Star Wars: A New Hope", year: 1977 },
        { title: "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back", year: 1980 },
        { title: "Star Wars: Return of the Jedi", year: 1983 }
      ]
  }, {
      categoryName: "Drama",
      items: [
        { title: "The Shawshenk Redemption", year: 1994 },
        { title: "Fight Club", year: 1999 },
        { title: "The Usual Suspects", year: 1995 }
      ]
  }
];

var localDataSource = new kendo.data.HierarchicalDataSource({ data: categorizedMovies });

The following example demonstrates how to create a HierarchicalDataSource component and bind it to heterogeneous local data by configuring it to bind the children when the fields which hold the children items have different names.

  var data = [{
    CategoryName: "Category 1",
    Products: [{
      ProductName: "Product 1",
      Suppliers: [{
        SupplierName: "Supplier 1"
      }]
    }]
  }];

  var Suppliers = {
    schema: {
      data: "Suppliers"
    }
  };

  var Products = {
    schema: {
      data: "Products",
      model: {
        children: Suppliers
      }
    }
  };

  var categoriesDataSource = new kendo.data.HierarchicalDataSource({
    data: data,
    schema: {
      model: {
        children: Products
      }
    }
  });

Binding to Remote Data Services

Create a HierarchicalDataSource component and bind it to a homogeneous remote data service. The following example targets the HierarchicalDataSource to a single service endpoint. The data service is homogeneous, that is, it always returns objects of the same type.

var homogeneous = new kendo.data.HierarchicalDataSource({
    transport: {
        read: {
            url: "https://demos.telerik.com/kendo-ui/service/Employees",
            dataType: "json"
        }
    },
    schema: {
        model: {
            id: "EmployeeId",
            hasChildren: "HasEmployees"
        }
    }
});

After you execute homogeneous.read(), the service endpoint has no EmployeeId parameter.

GET https://demos.telerik.com/kendo-ui/service/Employees

=> [ { "EmployeeId": 2, "Name": "Andrew", "HasEmployees": true } ]

Call the load method of the data item to read the children of the returned item.
```
var ceo = homogeneous.view()[0];

ceo.load();
```

This approach hits the service endpoint and supplies the id of the data item.

GET https://demos.telerik.com/kendo-ui/service/Employees?EmployeeId=2

=> [
      { "EmployeeId": 3, "Name": "Bob", "HasEmployees": false },
      { "EmployeeId": 4, "Name": "Charlie", "HasEmployees": false }
   ]

As a result, you can now access the children.

// ceo.children is a HierarchicalDataSource, too
var middleManagement = ceo.children.view();

The hasChildren Boolean property indicates whether a data item contains children that can be fetched from the server. You can either hard-code it, map it to another property, or compute it with a function.

// Hard-code that the item will always have children.
hasChildren: true

// Map the hasChildren property to the HasEmployees field, serialized from the server.
hasChildren: "HasChildren"

// Compute whether the given item will have children.
hasChildren: function(item) {
    return item.HasEmployees && item.RelatedDepartment;
}

The following example demonstrates how to create the HierarchicalDataSource component and bind it to remote data with multiple service endpoints. The configuration creates a two-level HierarchicalDataSource (categories and products) that fetches data from two different endpoints—/service/Categories and /service/Products respectively.

// Configuration of the products service endpoint.
var Products = {
        transport: {
            read: {
                url: "https://demos.telerik.com/kendo-ui/service/Products",
                dataType: "json"
            }
        },
        schema: {
            data: "products",
            model: {
                // products will never have children
                hasChildren: false
            }
        }
    };

// Configuration of the categories service endpoint.
var Categories = new kendo.data.HierarchicalDataSource({
    transport: {
        read: {
            url: "https://demos.telerik.com/kendo-ui/service/Categories",
            dataType: "json"
        }
    },
    schema: {
        data: "categories",
        model: {
            id: "categoryId",

            // categories will always have children
            hasChildren: true,

            // children will be fetched from the Products endpoint
            children: Products
        }
    }
});

Currently, the Kendo UI widgets that are aware of the datasource hierarchy are the TreeView, PanelBar, TreeMap, and DropDownTree. However, since the HierarchicalDataSource component inherits from the DataSource component, the root level of the hierarchy may be used by any DataSource-enabled component.

The following example demonstrates how to share the HierarchicalDataSource component between a Kendo UI TreeView and a Kendo UI Grid.

<ul id="treeview"></ul>
<div id="grid"></div>

<script>
var Categories = new kendo.data.HierarchicalDataSource({
  type: "odata",
  transport: {
    read: {
      url: "https://demos.telerik.com/kendo-ui/service/Northwind.svc/Categories"
    }
  },
  schema: {
    model: {
      id: "CategoryID",
      hasChildren: "Products",
      children: {
        type: "odata",
        transport: {
          read: {
            url: "https://demos.telerik.com/kendo-ui/service/Northwind.svc/Products"
          }
        },
        schema: {
          model: {
            id: "ProductID",
            hasChildren: false
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
});

$("#treeview").kendoTreeView({
  dataSource: Categories,
  dataTextField: ["CategoryName", "ProductName"]
});

$("#grid").kendoGrid({
   dataSource: Categories,
   columns: [
     { field: "CategoryName", title: "Name" },
     { field: "Description" }
   ]
});
</script>

HierarchicalDataSource Overview

Binding to Local Data

Binding to Remote Data Services

Widget Binding

See Also

Getting Started

Community

Frameworks