How to allow kendo grid to bind to an undefined field - kendo-ui

Question

I have this json object
{
id: string,
name: string,
category: {
id: string
name: string,
}
}
I want to have column that bind to productCategory.name. However that field is nullable. When productCategory is null/undefined, kendo will throw error. How can i tell kendo that if field is undefined, just show empty string?
EDIT
Below is my sample data
[{
"id":1,
"name":"Spaghetti",
"category":{
"id":"1",
"name":"Food"
}},
{
"id":2,
"name":"Coca-cola",
"category":null
}}]
Below is my kendo datasource
var kendoDataSource = new kendo.data.DataSource({
schema: {
data: "data",
total: "total",
model: {
id: "id",
fields: {
id: { type: "string" },
name: { type: "string" },
"category.name": { type: "string" }
}
}
}
});
Data above will throw "undefined" error, because second product does not have category.

Answer 1

Try using empty object instead of null
created a fiddle,check this:
http://jsfiddle.net/Sowjanya51/h930jcru/

Answer 2

Just provide a default value in your model like this:
var kendoDataSource = new kendo.data.DataSource({
schema: {
data: "data",
total: "total",
model: {
id: "id",
fields: {
id: { type: "string" },
name: { type: "string" },
"category.name": { type: "string" },
category: { defaultValue: {
id: "",
name: "",
}
}
}
}
}
});
This will initialize productCategory if it is null or undefined.