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How to Select2 Ajax Autocomplete Search in Laravel 11?

Laravel ·

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Before copying the example into a live application, confirm version-specific behaviour with the official Laravel website and test it against the project’s actual database and runtime.

Hi, Dev

In this guide, I'll walk you through implementing Select2 AJAX autocomplete search functionality within a Laravel 11 application.

Firstly, let's start by setting up a new Laravel 11 project and executing migrations to create the necessary 'users' table. Following that, we'll populate this table with some sample data using Laravel's Tinker.

Next, we'll craft a straightforward Blade view containing an input field for search purposes. Utilizing Select2 JavaScript library, we'll enhance this input field to feature autocomplete capabilities facilitated by AJAX requests.

Step for Laravel 11 Dynamic Autocomplete Search with Select2 Example


Step 1: Install Laravel 11

Step 2: Add Dummy Users

Step 3: Create Controller

Step 4: Create Routes

Step 5: Create View File

Run Laravel App

So, let's see the simple steps to complete this task.

Step 1: Install Laravel 11

This step is not required; however, if you have not created the Laravel app, then you may go ahead and execute the below command: 

composer create-project laravel/laravel example-app

Step 2: Add Dummy Users

After creating the users table, we will create some dummy users using the Tinker factory. So let's create dummy records using the below command: 

php artisan tinker
User::factory()->count(20)->create()

Step 3: Create Controller

At this point, we should create a new controller named SearchController. This controller will include two methods: one to return a view response and another to handle AJAX requests with JSON responses. Place the following content in the controller file:

app/Http/Controllers/SearchController.php 

<?php

 
namespace App\Http\Controllers;

 
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use App\Models\User;
use Illuminate\View\View;
use Illuminate\Http\JsonResponse;

 
class SearchController extends Controller
{
    /**
     * Display a listing of the resource.
     *
     * @return \Illuminate\Http\Response
     */
    public function index(): View
    {
        return view('searchDemo');
    }

       
    /**
     * Show the form for creating a new resource.
     *
     * @return \Illuminate\Http\Response
     */
    public function autocomplete(Request $request): JsonResponse
    {
        $data = [];

     
        if($request->filled('q')){
            $data = User::select("name", "id")
                        ->where('name', 'LIKE', '%'. $request->get('q'). '%')
                        ->take(10)
                        ->get();
        }

      
        return response()->json($data);
    }
}

Step 4: Create Routes

In this step, we need to create a route for the datatables layout file and another one for getting data. So open your "routes/web.php" file and add the following route.

routes/web.php 

<?php

   
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;

   
use App\Http\Controllers\SearchController;

    
Route::get('demo-search', [SearchController::class, 'index']);
Route::get('autocomplete', [SearchController::class, 'autocomplete'])->name('autocomplete');

Step 5: Create View File

In the last step, let's create `searchDemo.blade.php` (`resources/views/searchDemo.blade.php`) for layout and list all items code here and put the following code:

resources/views/searchDemo.blade.php 

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>How to Select2 Ajax Autocomplete Search in Laravel 11?- NiceSnippets.com</title>
    <link href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/[email protected]/dist/css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet">
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/select2/4.0.13/css/select2.min.css"/>
    <script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.6.0/jquery.min.js"></script>
    <script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/select2/4.0.13/js/select2.min.js"></script>
</head>
<body>

      
<div class="container">
    <div class="card mt-5">
        <h3 class="card-header p-3">How to Select2 Ajax Autocomplete Search in Laravel 11? - NiceSnippets.com</h3>
        <div class="card-body">

           
            <form action="#" method="POST" enctype="multipart/form-data" class="mt-2">
                @csrf

       
                <select class="form-control" id="search" style="width:500px;" name="user_id"></select>

       
                <div class="mb-3 mt-3">
                    <button type="submit" class="btn btn-success">Submit</button>
                </div>

            
            </form>
        </div>
    </div>  

     
</div>

      
<script type="text/javascript">
    var path = "{{ route('autocomplete') }}";

   
    $('#search').select2({
        placeholder: 'Select an user',
        ajax: {
          url: path,
          dataType: 'json',
          delay: 250,
          processResults: function (data) {
            return {
              results:  $.map(data, function (item) {
                    return {
                        text: item.name,
                        id: item.id
                    }
                })
            };
          },
          cache: true
        }
      });

   
</script>

      
</body>
</html>

Run Laravel App:

All the required steps have been done, now you have to type the given below command and hit enter to run the Laravel app: 

php artisan serve

Now, Go to your web browser, type the given URL and view the app output:

http://localhost:8000/demo-search

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