How to populate a JQuery array with Database values

Question

I am developing an autocomplete form using JQuery and Rails. However I don't know how to pull values from my database to JQuery (I believe this has to be done via Rails).

This is my autocomplete function in jQuery

<script>
  $(document).ready(function() {
    $( "#BOOKSEARCH" ).autocomplete({
        source: programmingLang
    });
});
var programmingLang = ["ActionScript","AppleScript","Asp","BASIC","C","C++",
    "Clojure","COBOL","ColdFusion","Erlang","Fortran","Groovy","Haskell",
    "Java","JavaScript","Lisp","Perl","PHP","Python","Ruby","Scala","Scheme"];
</script>

However at the moment the autocomplete fills from a hard coded array. How can a fill this array with my data values from rails?

Thanks

Mohit Jain · Accepted Answer · 2012-06-02 21:41:30Z

2

Try this:

   var programmingLang = <%= Language.all.map(&:name).to_json.html_safe %>;

Assuming you have a model Language having name column

Make sure you dont have thousands or records, cause that will slow down or even may throw time out error.In that case you should use ajax. There are couple of answers which explain ajax thing.

or

 var programmingLang = <%= ruby_array.to_json.html_safe %>;

answered Jun 2, 2012 at 21:41

Mohit Jain

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topek · Accepted Answer · 2012-06-02 21:41:16Z

0

You can do it with a simple AJAX request to an action that returns this array:

$(document).ready(function() {
  $.get('path-to-json', function(data){
    $( "#BOOKSEARCH" ).autocomplete({
      source: data
    });
});

answered Jun 2, 2012 at 21:41

topek

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2 Comments

Mohit Jain Over a year ago

If you have limited tags then there is no use of hitting server, Better bring records in form of an array..

topek Over a year ago

That's true. It depends on how exactly the autocomplete is implemented. jQueryUI has some demos for dynamic (jqueryui.com/demos/autocomplete/#remote) and static (jqueryui.com/demos/autocomplete/#default) versions that might help.

Sagiv Ofek · Accepted Answer · 2012-06-02 21:43:02Z

0

your rails controllers need to return an array (or json object, depends on your js requirements) with these values.
you can call this controller via simple ajax call to retrive the data.
once you have the data you can populate it the same way.
you can find more info about rails ajax here.

answered Jun 2, 2012 at 21:43

Sagiv Ofek

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1 Comment

Mohit Jain Over a year ago

If you have limited tags then there is no use of hitting server, Better bring records in form of an array..

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