优化jQuery速度

Question

I am trying to use jQuery's fancy autocomplete function but I have a problem with speed of executing my script. Code snippet:

var data =  <?php if(isset($names)) { echo json_encode(implode(" | ", array_unique($names))); } else { echo "null"; } ?>;
if (data != null) {
    data = data.split(" | ");
    $("#search_names").autocomplete(data);
}

My data comes from some MySQL table and is processed by PHP before jQuery pass it to input field. When I view source of such page there's enormous amount of text there (obviously) and the page itself loads between 5-10 seconds...

So I wonder is there a way to speed up my script somehow? I understand that there will be always so much text to process, whether in same file or in some other included file, but I just wonder am I stuck with 10sec loading page because of so much data or can I somehow make it more awesome? :)

Thanks for any help!

Answer 1

You should definitely use the remote autocomplete mechanism instead of filling all the data into the document every time.

The first argument can be an URL for remote data or an an array for local data.

For remote data: When the user starts typing, a request is send to the specified backend ("my_autocomplete_backend.php"), with a GET parameter named q that contains the current value of the input box and a parameter "limit" with the value specified for the max option.

if the lookups still take a lot of time, you will probably need to look into optimizing your PHP script instead of the jQuery part. Things like is the database using indexes, etc....

Answer 2

Looks like your using the following scritp: http://docs.jquery.com/Plugins/autocomplete

You should be using Ajax for this sort of thing, example:

 $("#search_names").autocomplete('/ajax/autocomplete.php');

and then within your auto complete html you should do something like:

<?php
    //Database
    //Do Query: SELECT item FROM content WHERE {$escaped_q} ORDER BY item_hits DESC LIMIT {$escaped_limit}

   //echo json_encode($results);
?>

Print the results as a JSON Object and it should work MUCH MUCH Faster.