Question

What are the steps for having jQuery UI’s autocomplete use a database?

Specifically, how do I pass this script the entered value? How does autocomplete receive the script’s json?

What I know:

1) Change the ‘source option’ to a script that queries the database.
2) ?

Current code:

$("#searchInput input").autocomplete({
     source: "script_that_queries_the_db.php"
});

Answer 1

step 2? Have your php page mysql_query based on $_GET['term'] and return the results using json_encode.

Edit: Also, make sure the array you pass to json_encode is a flat array, otherwise jQueryUI won’t read it as well as we’d like without writing more custom code.