CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ruby-on-railsruby-on-rails-3algorithmautocomplete
ankit
ankit

Reputation: 3358

Implementing a good autocomplete?

I'm running a Rails 3 app, where I have a jQuery autocomplete box, which returns results based on Google Places Autocomplete. Now, I also want it to return results from places present in my local db based on the string entered.

I've set up everything I need to to be able to return the places I want from my local db. At present, it returns EVERY place in my local DB, but I need to implement an algorithm to match the entered string to locations. Now, my question is, is there a good standard algorithm I can use to get autocomplete results, (hopefully on par with google places autocomplete) ? Don't worry about the implementation details, just the algorithm.

If there is a readymade solution for this in Rails, that would be great!

Upvotes: 0

Views: 417

Answers (2)

Cybercartel
Cybercartel

Reputation: 12592

If you have the geocoordinates of the location you can use a spatial index or a space-filling-curve to look for all locations in a quadrant. Or you can try the harvesine formula for a more exact match.

Upvotes: 0

mliebelt
mliebelt

Reputation: 15525

I have something similar setup (tasks that are valid for work_items), here is a rough sketch what I had to do:

  1. Install rails3-jquery-autocomplete that implements most of the needed functionality.
  2. Implement in your view something like: f.autocomplete_field :task, autocomplete_task_title_work_items_path, :id_element => "#task_id"
  3. Include in your controller that implements the actions for the view the following line at the beginning: autocomplete :task, :title, :limit => 1000, :full => true

You should find some documentation at GitHub for rails-jquery-autocomplete with some more options and explanations.

Upvotes: 2

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