How to enable/disable DataTable features using PHP

Tech Area
Last updated on: January 8, 2026

In this post, We will discuss how to enable and disable jquery datatable features like info, ordering, paging and searching using PHP and MySQL.

Files used in this tutorial:

1- connection.php (database connection file)

2- index.php (fetch data from database and initialise datatable)

Below are the step by step process of how to enable and disable jQuery DataTable features.

Step 1: Create a Database connection

In this step, create a new file connection.php to create database connection.

connection.php

<?php
$server = "localhost";
$username = "root";
$password = "";
$database = "college_db";
$connection = mysqli_connect("$server","$username","$password");
$select_db = mysqli_select_db($connection, $database);
if(!$select_db)
{
	echo("connection terminated");
}
?>

Step 2: Create a file for fetch data and initialise DataTable

Now create a new file index.php This is the main file used for fetch data from database. First, We will create an HTML Table.

index.php

First of all include necessary CSS and JavaScript library.

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="//cdn.datatables.net/2.0.3/css/dataTables.dataTables.min.css">
<script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.7.1.min.js"></script>
<script src="//cdn.datatables.net/2.0.3/js/dataTables.min.js"></script>

Now create body for Table.

<body>
<table id="myTable">
<thead>
  <tr>
    <th>Name</th>
    <th>Course</th>
    <th>Country</th>
  </tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
	<?php
		include('connection.php');
		$select_query = mysqli_query($connection,"select * from tbl_student");
		while($data = mysqli_fetch_array($select_query)){
	?>
  <tr>
    <td><?php echo $data['name']; ?></td>
    <td><?php echo $data['course']; ?></td>
    <td><?php echo $data['country']; ?></td>
  </tr>
  <?php } ?>
</tbody>
</table>
</body>

After this, create script for initialise datatable and disable datatable features like info, ordering, paging and searching.

<script>
$(document).ready(function(){
  $('#myTable').DataTable({
    info: false,
    ordering: false,
    paging: false,
    searching: false
  });
});
</script>

Source Code

Here is the full code that we have written for index.php.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
  <title>jQuery DataTables</title>
<style>
table {
  font-family: arial, sans-serif;
  border-collapse: collapse;
  width: 100%;
}

td, th {
  border: 1px solid #dddddd;
  text-align: left;
  padding: 8px;
}

tr:nth-child(even) {
  background-color: #dddddd;
}
</style>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="//cdn.datatables.net/2.0.3/css/dataTables.dataTables.min.css">
</head>
<body>
<table id="myTable">
<thead>
  <tr>
    <th>Name</th>
    <th>Course</th>
    <th>Country</th>
  </tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
  <?php
    include('connection.php');
    $select_query = mysqli_query($connection,"select * from tbl_student");
    while($data = mysqli_fetch_array($select_query)){
  ?>
  <tr>
    <td><?php echo $data['name']; ?></td>
    <td><?php echo $data['course']; ?></td>
    <td><?php echo $data['country']; ?></td>
  </tr>
  <?php } ?>
</tbody>
</table>
<script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.7.1.min.js"></script>
<script src="//cdn.datatables.net/2.0.3/js/dataTables.min.js"></script>
<script>
$(document).ready(function(){
  $('#myTable').DataTable({
    info: false,
    ordering: false,
    paging: false,
    searching: false
  });
});
</script>
</body>
</html>

Output