Question

I have a function which is like

  $(function() {
    var data = [
        { label: "anders", category: "" },
        { label: "annhhx10", category: "Products" },
        { label: "annk K12", category: "Products" },
        { label: "andreas johnson", category: "People" }
    ];

    $( "#search" ).catcomplete({
        delay: 0,
        source: data
    });
});

I want to pass all the labels in the “data[]” array from an external file which has around 1000 Entries instead of having them in the source file. Please guide me to achieve this.

Answer 1

Well, one option would be to do the following:

1. Put the data in some easy-to-parse file on the server.
2. Add into your javascript an AJAX call to request mydata.txt, or whatever you want to call your data file.
3. Parse the data that comes back in the response, build your label/category objects, and add them to your array.