Question

My auto-complete source list is a little bit like this:

var items = ['UK', 'IE', 'BE', 'NL', 'PLC'];

I am trying to make sure that the result set from my auto-complete always contains a
specific term (in this case PLC).

I have tried is adding PLC to the source list, then overriding the autocomplete result filter (see here).

I can get it to return “PLC” regardless of what is typed in like this:

$("#autocomplete").autocomplete({
    source: function(request, response) {
        // The term the user searched for;
        var term = request.term;

        // Extract matching items:
        var matches = $.grep(items, function(item, index) {
            return /PLC/.test(item);
        });

        // let autocomplete know the results:
        response(matches);
    }
});

http://jsfiddle.net/GarethPN/xbZhr/6/

But how would I use the term variable in the regular expression to retain the standard functionality?

Or is there a blindingly obvious easier way that I’m missing?

Answer 1

One idea is to create an array of matching result and adding PLC to them:

var items = ['UK', 'IE', 'FR', 'BE', 'NL'];
$("#autocomplete").autocomplete({
    source: function(request, response) {
        // The term the user searched for;
        var term = request.term;

        var matches = [];
        matches.push('PLC');/(add PLC
        // Extract matching items: (write your own function here)


        // let autocomplete know the results:
        response(matches);
    }
});

fiddle here: http://jsfiddle.net/xbZhr/8/