JQuery Autocomplete source is a function - jquery-ui

Question

I'm using JQuery UI autocomplete, for different fields. To get the data i'm using a function as the source. It work great!
I was wondering if there were a way of not using the anonym function in the source, but to declare a generic one which will have a parameter to redirect to the right URL.
I'm quite new in JS and JQuery and so I have no idea of what the parameters request and response are comming from in the anonym function.
Here is what I'm trying to do:
$ac.autocomplete({
//Call the function here, but what are the parameter request and response???
source: autocomplete(),
minLength: 1
});
Here is the function I'd like to call
function autoComplete(request, response, url) {
$.ajax({
url: '/Comp/'+url,
dataType: "json",
type: "POST",
success: function (data) {
response($.map(data, function(item) {
return { label: item, value: item, id: item };
}));
}
});
}
Thanks a lot for your help.

Answer 1

You should use
source: autoComplete
instead of
source: autocomplete()
One more remark. The default implementation of jQuery UI Autocomplete use only value and label and not use id.

Answer 2

Reformatting ur question will pose as solution to the problem .:)
$ac.autocomplete({
minLength: 1 ,
source: function(request, response, url){
var searchParam = request.term;
$.ajax({
url: '/Comp/'+url,
data : searchParam,
dataType: "json",
type: "POST",
success: function (data) {
response($.map(data, function(item) {
return {
label: item.Firstname,
value: item.FirstName
};
});
}
});//ajax ends
}
}); //autocomplete ends
The request and response objects are expected by jQuery UI . The request.term will give u the text that the user types and the response method will return the label and value items to the widget factory for displaying the suggestion dropdown
P.S : assuming ur JSON string contains a FirstName key !

Answer 3

I will give an example of a situation that happened to me, might serve as an example:
Situation: After the user selects a keyword with Jquery Autocomplete not allow it to be listed. Taking into account that the query is executed the same, ie the unamended cat. server-side.
The code looked like this:
$( "#keyword-search" ).autocomplete({
minLength: 3 ,
source: function( request , response ) {
var param = { keyword_type: type , keyword_search: request.term } ;
$.ajax({
url: URI + 'search-to-json',
data : param,
dataType: "json",
type: "GET",
success: function (data) {
response($.map(data, function( item ) {
/* At this point I call a function, I use to decide whether to add on the list to be selected by the user. */
if ( ! is_record_selected( item ) ) {
return item;
}
}));
}
});
} ,
select: function( event , ui ) {
/* Before you add, looking if there is any cell */
/* If it exists, compare the id of each cell not to add an existing */
if ( validate_new_keyword( ui ) ) {
add_cell( ui ) ;
}
} ,
});
/* Any validation... */
function validate_new_keyword( ui ) {
var keyword_id = $.trim(ui.item.id) ;
Any condition...
if (keyword_id > 0) {
return true ;
}
return false ;
}
/* This function checks if a keyword has not been selected by the user, it checks for the keyword_array. */
function is_record_selected( item ) {
var index = jQuery.inArray( item.id , keyword_array ) ;
return index == -1 ? false : true;
}
Obs: Thus it is possible to use a function inside "source" and "select". =p