jQuery UI Autocomplete with Categories

Question

I'm using jQuery UI's Auto Complete to provide suggestions from a remote source for a search input box. I've got the "remote datasource" example working. For example, this works:

    $("#search").autocomplete({
        source: "search_basic.php",
        minLength: 2
    });

However, I'd like to use the "Categories" example to sort the suggesions by category. The example from the jQuery UI site, with an inline set of data works fine:

       <script>
 $.widget( "custom.catcomplete", $.ui.autocomplete, {
  _renderMenu: function( ul, items ) {
   var self = this,
    currentCategory = "";
   $.each( items, function( index, item ) {
    if ( item.category != currentCategory ) {
     ul.append( "<li class='ui-autocomplete-category'>" + item.category + "</li>" );
     currentCategory = item.category;
    }
    self._renderItem( ul, item );
   });
  }
 });

 $(function() {
  var data = [
   { label: "anders", category: "" },
   { label: "andreas", category: "" },
   { label: "antal", category: "" },
   { label: "annhhx10", category: "Products" },
   { label: "annk K12", category: "Products" },
   { label: "annttop C13", category: "Products" },
   { label: "anders andersson", category: "People" },
   { label: "andreas andersson", category: "People" },
   { label: "andreas johnson", category: "People" }
  ];

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

However, when I try to get the data from my remote file

source: 'search.php'

it doesn't suggest anything. Here's the code with the search.php:

    <script>
 $.widget( "custom.catcomplete", $.ui.autocomplete, {
  _renderMenu: function( ul, items ) {
   var self = this,
    currentCategory = "";
   $.each( items, function( index, item ) {
    if ( item.category != currentCategory ) {
     ul.append( "<li class='ui-autocomplete-category'>" + item.category + "</li>" );
     currentCategory = item.category;
    }
    self._renderItem( ul, item );
   });
  }
 });

 $(function() {

  $( "#search" ).catcomplete({
   source: 'search.php'
  });
 });
 </script>

The data that search.php is returning is correctly formatted:

         [
 { label: "annhhx10", category: "Products" },
 { label: "annttop", category: "Products" },
 { label: "anders", category: "People" },
 { label: "andreas", category: "People" }
 ]

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks, Greg

Answer 1

Your PHP file probably isn't returning the right header. Add this to your PHP file:

header('Content-Type: application/json');

The browser will then interpret the response as JSON and act on it.

EDIT:

Your response also needs to have quotes around the labels, not just the values, when returning JSON in a response. In PHP, using json_encode() on an array of objects will return the following JSON (linebreaks added):

[
 { "label": "annhhx10", "category": "Products" },
 { "label": "annttop", "category": "Products" },
 { "label": "anders", "category": "People" },
 { "label": "andreas", "category": "People" }
]