Question

I am using jQuery autocomplete, and want to have a separate PHP file to house the data, instead of creating a variable (i.e. var availableTags = [“Red”, “Orange”, “Yellow”, “Green, “Blue”]).

However, when doing this, the autocomplete will continually display all of the available options, and not filter out what the user types in.

Any ideas?

Javascript:

$(document).ready(function() {

    $( ".autocomplete" ).autocomplete({
            source: "../../db/autocomplete_list.php"
    });

});

autocomplete_list.php

require_once('../includes/connect.php');
$dbh = connect(DB_HOST,DB_USER,DB_PASSWORD,CM_DATABASE);

$colors = '[';

$sth = $dbh->query ("SELECT * FROM constants 
                     WHERE category='Colors' 
                     ORDER BY display");

while ($row = $sth->fetch ()) { 

    $colors.= '"'.$row[value].'", '; 

}

$colors = rtrim($colors, ', ');

$colors .= ']';

print $colors;

execution of autocomplete_list.php

[“Red”, “Orange”, “Yellow”, “Green, “Blue”]

EDIT:

Have updated my autocomplete_list.php file to the following. However, now the autocomplete isn’t displaying my values. If I check the response in FireBug, it is showing the results correctly, it just appears that they aren’t being passed back to the autocomplete.

require_once('../includes/connect.php');
$dbh = connect(DB_HOST,DB_USER,DB_PASSWORD,CM_DATABASE);

if(isset($_GET['term'])) {
    $mysearchString = $_GET['term'];
}

$sth = $dbh->query("SELECT category, value, display FROM constants 
                    WHERE category = 'COLORS' AND value LIKE '$mysearchString%'
                    ORDER BY display");

while ($row = $sth->fetch ()) { 
    print $row['display']."\n";         
}

Answer 1

Found a solution here:

http://www.jensbits.com/2010/03/29/jquery-ui-autocomplete-widget-with-php-and-mysql/

require_once('../includes/connect.php');
$dbh = connect(DB_HOST,DB_USER,DB_PASSWORD,CM_DATABASE);

$return_arr = array();

if(isset($_GET['term'])) {
    $mysearchString = $_GET['term'];
}

$sth = $dbh->query("SELECT category, value, display FROM constants 
                    WHERE category = 'COLORS' AND value LIKE '$mysearchString%'
                    ORDER BY display");

while ($row = $sth->fetch PDO::FETCH_ASSOC()) { 

     $row_array = $row['display'];

     array_push($return_arr,$row_array);

}

echo json_encode($return_arr);