Short explanation --

I'm building a custom data source which I intended to do via either json or php and then feed into a table. When I access my endpoint directly it is aware of the logged in user. But when the endpoint is accessed through the datatable (i.e. I view the page that has the table shortcode), there is no awareness of the logged in WP user. Consequently I can't filter my data properly. I read that it's possible to filter by the logged in user when using the MySQL data source, but my preference is to handle this with a script that lives in my website.

Is there any way to enable logged-in-user awareness? I'm using the lite version for now. If this is a feature available in the premium version, please let me know.

Ok -- I was aware of the option to restrict to the user when using MySQL as the datasource, but I'd rather not use that option. I don't think I was clear enough in my original ticket -- I am seeking to either use "JSON file" or "Serialized PHP array" as the data source. In either case, the end point is a link within my site.

The problem is that when the endpoint is hit, it has no awareness of the logged in user. I suspect you're using wget or file_get_contents to retrieve the data from the endpoint URL and so it is basically accessed anonymously.

Is there anyway to build the URL to the endpoint and pass the User ID? Will the placeholder you referenced work in that way?

I tried using that placeholder but it only seems to be used with the MySQL data source.

If the json/php url data source is not inherently aware of the logged in user, what I'm basically looking for is something similar to the MySQL placeholder -- a variable that I can include with the endpoint URL to pass the logged in user's ID so that I can return data filtered to the user.

I'm having this same problem. I tried using get_current_user_id() and it always returns 0

When I access the endpoint from my browser while logged in, I get the correct user ID. When wp data tables access the endpoint using the PHP serialized array option, the user ID is always 0.

So as a work around I added the  %CURRENT_USER_ID% placeholder to the URL that I entered in the 'Input file path or URL' field.

So it looks like this now 

https://domain.com/folder/custom-php-file.php?user_id=%CURRENT_USER_ID% 

My php script looks like this. 

<?php
// Initializing the WordPress engine in a stanalone PHP file
require_once $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/wp-blog-header.php';
header("HTTP/1.1 200 OK"); // Forcing the 200 OK header as WP can return 404 otherwise
function wpdt_get_the_user_id()
{
    if (isset($_GET['user_id']))
    {
        $current_user = $_GET['user_id'];
      
        //You now have the current user id 
    }
}

I know this way is unsafe and I would prefer to just use get_current_user_id() instead. 

Can anybody help me get the user id without using the  %CURRENT_USER_ID% placeholder in the URL?

Ok this worked great for me. I did not need to add the extra code to wp-content/plugins/wpdatatables/source/class.wpdatatable.php

The code was already added at line 3014

$url =  apply_filters('wpdatatables_filter_url_php_array', WDTTools::applyPlaceholders($tableData->content), $this->_wpId);

Thanks for the help