Question

I’m a newbie in asp.net mvc.

I need to create a ‘auto-complete tag search’ functionality like stackoverflow. My intent is to create a controller with JsonResult to get a filtered tag to auto-complete the input-text element. This is a good practice? If yes, any recommendations for something I need to avoid?

Thanks in advance.

PS.: Sorry for poor English.

Answer 1

The solution suggested by kekekela can be used even if there are multiple filter parameters, no need to create multiple actions unless the result set is of different type. For example:

[HttpPost]
    [Authorize]
    public JsonResult FilterTasks(int maxResults, string users = "", string tags = "", string categories = "")
    {
        List<int> userIdList = MyHelper.GetIntList(users);
        List<string> tagNameList = MyHelper.GetStringList(tags);
        List<string> categoryIdList = MyHelper.GetStringList(categories);
        var tasks = from task in projectsEntities.Tasks select task;
        if (userIdList.Count >  0)
            tasks = tasks.Where(task => userIdList.Contains(task.UserId));
        if (tagNameList.Count > 0)
            tasks = tasks.Where(task => tagNameList.Contains(task.TagName));
        if (categoryIdList.Count > 0)
            tasks = tasks.Where(task => categoryIdList.Contains(task.CategoryId));
        var topTasks = tasks.Take(maxResults).ToArray();
        return Json(topTasks);
    }