Question

Classic ASP/AJAX auto-complete

Asked by: dreamworks_studio

Hi all,
I am trying to create an auto-complete which works with a text box, when you start typing in the text box it will display suggestions taken from a database.

I have a solution that is working but there are almost 5000 records in the table and it can take almost a minute for the first set of suggestions to appear, so it is obviously not practical.

Does anyone know of any tweaks I can do to the code to make it a lot quicker (or know of any other solutions), I had thought that limiting the amount of suggestions it shows might help but I'm not sure how to do this. At present if you type "a" then it shows you everything starting with "a" which is hundreds of records.

Many thanks
Gordon

ASP to process suggestions:
 
<%
response.expires=-1
Dim rsWords
Dim rsWords_numRows
Dim q
Dim b
Dim hint
q=ucase(request.querystring("q"))
b=(request.querystring("b"))
f=(request.querystring("f"))
a=(request.querystring("a"))
hint=""
Set rsWords = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Recordset")
rsWords.ActiveConnection = <connection string>
rsWords.Source = "SELECT medName FROM dbo.prescMeds WHERE (medName LIKE'" + q + "%') ORDER BY medName"
rsWords.CursorType = 2
rsWords.CursorLocation = 2
rsWords.LockType = 3
rsWords.Open()
rsWords_numRows = 5
 
If Not rsWords.EOF Then
	Do While Not rsWords.EOF
		If trim(hint) = "" Then
			hint = "<a href=""javascript:setTextBox('" & rsWords("medName") & "','" & b & "','" & f & "','" & a & "');"">" & rsWords("medName") & "</a>"
		Else
			hint = hint & " <br /><br /> <a href=""javascript:setTextBox('" & rsWords("medName") & "','" & b & "','" & f & "','" & a & "');"">" & rsWords("medName") & "</a>"
		End If
		rsWords.MoveNext()
	Loop
End If
if trim(hint)="" then 
  response.write("no suggestion")
else
  response.write(hint)
end if
 
rsWords.Close()
Set rsWords = Nothing
%>
 
__________________________________________________
 
Javascript/AJAX to process suggestions:
 
var xmlHttp
 
function showHint(str, box, thisForm, autoSubmit)
{
if (str.length==0)
  { 
  document.getElementById("txtHint").innerHTML="";
  return;
  }
xmlHttp=GetXmlHttpObject()
if (xmlHttp==null)
  {
  alert ("Your browser does not support AJAX!");
  return;
  } 
var url="gethint.asp";
url=url+"?q="+str;
url=url+"&b="+box;
url=url+"&f="+thisForm;
url=url+"&a="+autoSubmit;
url=url+"&sid="+Math.random();
xmlHttp.onreadystatechange=stateChanged;
xmlHttp.open("GET",url,true);
xmlHttp.send(null);
} 
 
function stateChanged() 
{ 
if (xmlHttp.readyState==4)
{ 
document.getElementById("txtHint").innerHTML=xmlHttp.responseText;
}
}
 
function GetXmlHttpObject()
{
var xmlHttp=null;
try
  {
  // Firefox, Opera 8.0+, Safari
  xmlHttp=new XMLHttpRequest();
  }
catch (e)
  {
  // Internet Explorer
  try
    {
    xmlHttp=new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP");
    }
  catch (e)
    {
    xmlHttp=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
    }
  }
return xmlHttp;
}
 
//this function allows for Clickable suggestions
function setTextBox(thisText,thisBox,thisForm,autoSubmit){
	document.getElementById(thisBox).value = thisText
	//this autoSubmits the form after a suggestion is clicked - it is not working :(
	//if(autoSubmit=='true'){
	//	alert(thisForm);
	//	document.getElementById(thisForm).submit();
	//}
}
 
______________________________________________________________
 
Form and Div to show suggestions:
<form action="prescriptions4.asp" method="post">
      <input type="text" id="txt1" onkeyup="showHint(this.value,'txt1','form1',true)" /> 
</form>
<div id="txtHint"></div>

                                  
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Asked On
2009-09-18 at 03:46:48ID24742775
Tags

ASP

,

AJAX

,

Javascript

Topics

JavaScript

,

Active Server Pages (ASP)

,

Asynchronous Javascript and XML (AJAX)

Participating Experts
1
Points
500
Comments
4

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Answers

 

by: kadabaPosted on 2009-09-18 at 04:13:13ID: 25364637

On a single key press instead of retrieving all 5k records, you could get lesser number of records.

You could do this in query itself limiting the number of records to be shown.

 

by: dreamworks_studioPosted on 2009-09-18 at 04:26:19ID: 25364719

Thanks.

Changed the query to:
"SELECT TOP 5 medName FROM dbo.prescMeds WHERE (medName LIKE'" + q + "%') ORDER BY medName"

And it is running a good bit faster, it's still taking about 4 seconds to show suggestions though, do you have any other ideas on how to speed it up or is it really down to the size of the table?

 

by: kadabaPosted on 2009-09-18 at 04:38:47ID: 25364800

There are libraries such as dojo. jquery which can be used and they are real fast.

For one such requirement I also developed using plain javascript +  ajax. The assist was for getting user names (i had about 2000 users). I used for two key strokes, i mean when user types "ax" then the assist instead of "a".

from my server side to the client I got user names in xml format. I used xmlhttp.responseXML.documentElement and looped and got the assist working and this was good enough.




 

by: dreamworks_studioPosted on 2009-09-18 at 06:12:23ID: 31630485

Thanks for your help,
Pointed me in the right direction and the code is working a lot better now.

Gordon

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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