Working with data in ASP.NET MVC Chart Component

18 Nov 20182 minutes to read

Chart can visualize data bound from local or remote data.

Local data

You can bind a simple JSON data to the chart using DataSource property in series. Now map the fields in JSON to XName and YName properties.

Common datasource

You can also bind a JSON data common to all series using DataSource property in chart.

Remote data

You can also bind remote data to the chart using DataManager. The DataManager requires minimal information like webservice URL, adaptor and crossDomain to interact with service endpoint properly. Assign the instance of DataManager to the DataSource property in series and map the fields of data to XName and YName properties. You can also use the Query property of the series to filter the data.

Binding data using ODataAdaptor

OData is a standardized protocol for creating and consuming data. You can retrieve data from an OData service using the DataManager. Refer to the following code example for remote data binding using an OData service.

Binding data using ODataV4Adaptor

ODataV4 is an improved version of the OData protocols, and the DataManager can also retrieve and consume ODataV4 services. For more details on ODataV4 services, refer to the odata documentation. To bind an ODataV4 service, use the ODataV4Adaptor.

Web API adaptor

You can use the WebApiAdaptor to bind the chart with a Web API created using an OData endpoint.

The response object should contain the properties Items and Count, where Items represents a collection of entities, and Count represents the total number of entities.

The sample response object should appear as follows:

{
    Items: [{..}, {..}, {..}, ...],
    Count: 830
}

Custom adaptor

You can create your own adaptor by extending the built-in adaptors. The following demonstrates the custom adaptor approach and how to add a serial number to the records by overriding the built-in response processing using the processResponse method of the ODataAdaptor.

Offline mode

When using remote data binding, all chart actions will be processed on the server-side. To avoid postback for every action, configure the chart to load all data upon initialization and handle actions on the client-side. To enable this behavior, utilize the offline property of the DataManager.

Empty points

The Data points that uses the null or undefined as value are considered as empty points. Empty data points are ignored and not plotted in the Chart. When the data is provided by using the points property, By using EmptyPointSettings property in series, you can customize the empty point. Default Mode of the empty point is Gap.

Lazy loading

Lazy loading allows you to load data for chart on demand. Chart will fire the scrollEnd event, in that we can get the minimum and maximum range of the axis, based on this, we can upload the data to chart.

Customizing empty point

Specific color for empty point can be set by Fill property in EmptyPointSettings. Border for a empty point can be set by Border property.

Handling No Data