NAME

JavaScript::Autocomplete::Backend - Google Suggest-compatible autocompletion backend

SYNOPSYS

package MyAutocompleter;
use base qw(JavaScript::Autocomplete::Backend);

my @NAMES = qw(alice bob charlie); 
sub expand {
    my ($self, $query) = @_;
    # do something to expand the query
    my $re = qr/^\Q$query\E/i;
    my @names = grep /$re/, @NAMES;
    (lc $query, \@names, [], [""]);
}

MyAutocompleter->run;

DESCRIPTION

This is a base class for implementing an autocompletion server with the same protocol used by Google Suggest ( http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en ). It is basically a CGI script that takes a word to be completed as the "qu" parameter and returns a specially concoted JavaScript statement. For more efficiency it should be possible to turn it into a mod_perl handler; that is left as an exercise for the reader.

The front-end JavaScript code is discussed in http://serversideguy.blogspot.com/2004/12/google-suggest-dissected.html .

This module is used by creating a subclass, which should override the expand method, which takes care of searching for the autocompletion results.

METHODS

$class->run(%args)

Run the whole autocompletion process in one fell swoop. Prints everything to standard output, including the HTTP headers. The arguments %args are passed to the constructor.

$class->new(%args)

Create a new JavaScript::Autocomplete::Backend object. Currently the only argument is cgi, which should provide a CGI or CGI-compatible object. If none is provided, a new CGI object is created by default.

$obj->query

Returns the string to be expanded (which usually comes from the "qu" CGI parameter).

$obj->cgi

Returns the CGI object being used.

$obj->param($name)

Get a CGI parameter. Just delegates the call to $self->cgi.

$obj->header(%args)

Return the HTTP headers. It just delegates to $self->cgi, but it uses the UTF-8 encoding by default.

$obj->output($query, $names, $values, $prefix)

Converts the expanded values into JavaScript, as expected by the calling frontend script. $query is a string; all the other parameters are array refs. Returns a string.

$obj->expand($query)

Provide the autocompleted values for the query. Returns a 4-element list: ($query, $names, $values, $prefix). $query is the query as returned to the frontend script (typically converted to lowercase). $names is an array ref of results. $values is an array ref of values that are usually shown on the right-hand side of the drop-down box in the front end; it is used by Google for the estimated result count. The purpose of $prefix is not certain at this time, but it appears that if the array is empty, the drop-down menu appears but the word in the input box itself is not completed, while if the array is not empty (for example, contains an empty string as its only element), the word in the input box is completed as well.

$obj->as_array(\@arr)

Convert an array ref into a JavaScript Array constructor. Returns a string. For example,

print $obj->as_array(["a", "b", "c"]);
# prints 'new Array("a", "b", "c")'

$obj->no_js

Returns that message that is returned by the Google backend when the js CGI parameter is not true.

SEE ALSO

http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en

http://serversideguy.blogspot.com/2004/12/google-suggest-dissected.html

VERSION

0.10

AUTHOR

Ivan Tubert-Brohman <itub@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 2004 Ivan Tubert-Brohman. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

The original JavaScript frontend code is Copyright (c) 2004 Google, Inc. Use it at your own risk or write or find a free version.