How can we integrate jQuery autocomplete using asp.net, webservice and sql database?

Question

I am trying to implement the code given for \"jQuery Autocomplete and ASP.NET\", but unable to integrate it because you are using subsonic to query database.

So can

Answer 1

I am not fluent in asp.net but fundamentally like most web coding questions this involves breaking your problem into smaller ones.

From an architectural perspective your components might include the following...

• a service layer that potentially uses your db etc to answer or produce a result for your query.
• a web component or service entry point that uses the completed service mentioned above to return the data in a format the browesrr can easily understand - eg JSON.
• some javascript using jquery which invokes the end point define in the immediate point above.
• write unit tests for all the above components - don't forget to test failure cases because as we all know software sometimes fails ...

Answer 2

This is a pretty easy task, the catch is that the jQuery autocomplete extender expects an array of values. Here is example of how I parse the standard XML results from a ASMX web serivce to use with the jQuery autocomplete extender.

Since ASP.NET likes to rewrite your ID's, you can pass in the ClientID to get the dynamic ID.

    $("#<%= TextBox1.ClientID %>").autocomplete("/Demo/WebSvc.asmx/SuggestCustomers", {
        parse: function(data) {
            var parsed = [];

            $(data).find("string").each(function() {
                parsed[parsed.length] = {
                    data: [$(this).text()],
                    value: $(this).text(),
                    result: [$(this).text()]
                };
            });
            return parsed;
        },
        dataType: "xml"
    });

Here is what the associated web service would look like, remember to uncomment the [ScriptService] attribute on the web service:

[WebService(Namespace = "http://tempuri.org/")]
[WebServiceBinding(ConformsTo = WsiProfiles.BasicProfile1_1)]
[ScriptService]
public class WebSvc: WebService
{
    [WebMethod]
    public string[] SuggestedCustomers(string q)
    {
        // Do Query

        // Add items into string array
        List<string> items = new List<string>();
        while (dr.Read())
        {
            items.Add(dr[0].ToString());
        }

        // Return array
        return items.ToArray();
    }

}