Server-side export (Buttons) with separate index and data route and controller functions

[Extractivity]

First of all, thanks for this package; I especially like the DataTables service class and the diminishing need for custom javascript. I'm using Laravel 10 and yajra/laravel-datatables 10.1 (with all plugins).

When I use a single route for Laravel Datatables, exporting data to csv/excel via the Buttons plugin works fine. But, since my project renders views to json and processes them client-side I have to separate the index view and data - calling my custom index controller function for data makes no sense to Laravel DataTables.

I attempted the separation in the following way (code reduced to minimum):

Routes

    Route::any('foo/view/index', [FooController::class, 'fooIndex'])->name('foo.view.index');
    Route::any('foo/data', [FooController::class, 'fooData'])->name('foo.data');

FooController.php

    public function fooIndex (Request $request, FooDataTable $dataTable)
    {
        $view = $dataTable->render('foo.index');

        // the view is rendered to json and returned here via the custom handleAjax() function
        return $this->isAjax ? $this->handleAjax($view) : $view;
    }

    public function fooData (Request $request, FooDataTable $dataTable)
    {
        return $dataTable->ajax();
    }

FooDataTable.php

    public function html () : HtmlBuilder
    {
        return $this->builder()
                    ->ajax([
                        'url' => route('foo.data'),
                        'type' => 'POST',
                        'data' => [
                            '_token' =>  csrf_token(),
                        ],
                    ])
                    // skipping table id, columns, buttons config, etc.

This works fine as far as opening the view and building the DataTable is concerned, but when the export buttons are used, json data is returned (nuking my project) instead of a separate file download. So, my question:

Is there a way to use server-side export via buttons while using a separate data route?

[yajra]

The export function is currently handled using the render method. Given this, you can use:

    public function fooData (Request $request, FooDataTable $dataTable)
    {
        return $dataTable->render('dummy.view');
    }

[yajra]

You can also create a DataTableHTML class which you can inject in the view as needed. You can use the commands below to scaffold the class.

php artisan datatables:make Users --builder
php artisan datatables:html Users

This approach might save you some processing time since your index view doesn't need the whole DataTable class.

    public function fooIndex (Request $request)
    {
        $dataTable = UsersDataTablHtml::make();

        // the view is rendered to json and returned here via the custom handleAjax() function
        return view('your.view', compact('dataTable'));
    }

[Extractivity]

Thank you for your answer. Changing the data response to $dataTable->render(...) did the trick. I will try implementing the DataTableHTML class, thank you very much for that recommendation as well.