Jquery Autocomplete with json and using parameters - json

Question

I am trying to do an autocomplete input field. Everytime a user type a letter in that field, the value of the field is sent to the server and the server answer with words that match.
var acOptions = {
source:function (request, response) {
$.ajax({
url: "index.php?option=com_fmw&view=keywords_api&controller=keywords_api&format=raw",
type: "GET", dataType: "json",
data: { expr: request.term},
success: function (data) {
response($.map(data, function (item) {
return item.value;
}))
}
})
},
minChars: 1,
dataType: 'json'
};
$( "#search_box_input" ).autocomplete(acOptions);
This is an example of data from the server:
[{"value":"Greater"},{"value":"great"},{"value":"greatly"},{"value":"Greater-Axe"}]
The previous code do the right request to the server (and the server answer right) but it does not display anything in the text field.
I tried to do the autocomplete without an explicit ajax object but then I couldn't send the current value of the field (parameter "expr" of the request) to the server:
var acOptions = {
source: "index.php?option=com_fmw&view=keywords_api&controller=keywords_api&format=raw&expr=",
minChars: 1,
dataType: 'json'
};
$( "#search_box_input" ).autocomplete(acOptions);
Thank you for your help!

Answer 1

You can use jQuery to pull the value of your field to add it to URL parameter string.
var acOptions = {
source: "index.php?option=com_fmw&view=keywords_api&controller=keywords_api&format=raw&expr=" + $('#ID_OF_YOUR_TEXTBOX').val(),
minChars: 1,
dataType: 'json'
};
$( "#search_box_input" ).autocomplete(acOptions);