Highlight multiple keywords for jQuery.autocomplete

Answer 1

Use the RegExp constructor to create a RegExp object from a string:

$('.autocomplete').autocomplete('getmatch.php', {
    highlight: function(match, keywords) {
        keywords = keywords.split(' ').join('|');
        return match.replace(new RegExp("("+keywords+")", "gi"),'<b>$1</b>');
    }
});

Answer 2

Your function should use this signature: function(value, term). The value & term will be populated by the autocomplete plug-in and have the values you need.

Answer 3

I tweaked the initial autocomplete implementation as the above is simplified and won't deal with regEx special characters in the term.

function doTheHighlight(value, term) {
    // Escape any regexy type characters so they don't bugger up the other reg ex
    term = term.replace(/([\^\$\(\)\[\]\{\}\*\.\+\?\|\\])/gi, "\\$1");

    // Join the terms with a pipe as an 'OR'
    term = term.split(' ').join('|');

    return value.replace(new RegExp("(?![^&;]+;)(?!<[^<>]*)(" + term + ")(?![^<>]*>)(?![^&;]+;)", "gi"), "<strong>$1</strong>");
}