jQuery UI autocomplete showing html code - php

Question

I am having a problem with autocomplete that is confusing me a little. I did a search first, I am not the only one having this problem. But everyone seems to use jQuery Autocomplete in their own way, so it didn't really help me.
Anyway, here is the problem. I am building a search function, that is supposed to show a list of users, retrieved from a mysql database. I got that to work. So when I start typing, it immediately shows a list of users. What I want to do next, is to make the results links, that redirect the user to a different page.
Here is findartist.php;
if(isset($_GET['term'])){
$artist = new User();
$return_arr = array();
$results = $artist->findUser($_GET['term']);
foreach($results as $result){
$link = "<a href='profile/index.php?st=" . $result['stagename'] . "'/>" . $result['stagename'] . "</a>";
$return_arr[] = $link;
}
echo json_encode($return_arr);
}
And here is the jQuery;
<script>
$(function() {
//autocomplete
$(".artist_input").autocomplete({
source: "/includes/findartist.php",
minLength: 1
});
});
</script>
The problem is that when I do this, it shows the html code.
So this is what it would look like;
<a href='profile/index.php?st=bob'/>bob</a>
Is there a way to fix this?

Answer 1

This isn't how autocomplete is set-up to work. It's set up to assume what you return is the text you want to display. It can't handle HTML in the way you're asking.
However, that doesn't mean all is lost...
Instead of having findartist return an array of <a> tags, just the artist names.
Then, you write another function, bound to the 'select' event of the autocomplete object that will navigate you to the page you want.
See the documentation for the event in question here: http://api.jqueryui.com/autocomplete/#event-select
For example, findartist.php may change to:
if(isset($_GET['term'])){
$artist = new User();
$return_arr = array();
$results = $artist->findUser($_GET['term']);
foreach($results as $result){
$return_arr[] = $result['stagename'];
}
echo json_encode($return_arr);
}
And your autocomplete may look something like:
<script>
$(function() {
//autocomplete
$(".artist_input").autocomplete({
source: "/includes/findartist.php",
minLength: 1,
onSelect: function (suggestion) {
// event fires when the user selects something from the list.
window.location.href = "profile/index.php?st=" + suggestion;
}
});
});
</script>
Forgive me any mis-matched brackets or syntax error - I'm coding without a workign dev environment. Hopefully it helps anyway.
Try it out, see where you get.

Answer 2

you can work on form submit, it is the best way to redirected to results page
$(document).ready(function(){
$(".artist_input").autocomplete({
source: "/includes/findartist.php",
minLength:1,
select: function( event, ui ) {
$("#name").val(ui.item.label);
$("#form").submit();
}
});
});