Filtering in ASP.NET MVC AutoComplete Control

16 Feb 20246 minutes to read

The AutoComplete has built-in support to filter data items. The filter operation starts as soon as you start typing characters in the control.

Change the filter type

Determines on which filter type, the control needs to be considered on search action. The available filterType and its supported data types are as follows.

Filter Type Description Supported Types
StartsWith Checks whether a value begins with the specified value. String
EndsWith Checks whether a value ends with the specified value. String
Contains Checks whether a value contains the specified value. String

The following examples shows the data filtering is done with StartsWith type.

@Html.EJS().AutoComplete("customers").Placeholder("Select a customer").PopupHeight("200px").FilterType(Syncfusion.EJ2.DropDowns.FilterType.StartsWith).DataSource(dataManger =>
            dataManger.Url("https://services.odata.org/V4/Northwind/Northwind.svc/").Adaptor("ODataV4Adaptor").CrossDomain(true)).Fields(new Syncfusion.EJ2.DropDowns.AutoCompleteFieldSettings 
            {
                Value = "ContactName",
            }).Query("new ej.data.Query().from('Customers').select(['ContactName'])").Render()
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc;
using WebApplication1.Models;

namespace WebApplication1.Controllers
{
    public class AutoCompleteController : Controller
    {
        public ActionResult filtering()
        {
            return View();
        }       
    }
}

Filter item count

You can specify the filter suggestion item count through suggestionCount property of AutoComplete.

The following example, to restrict the suggestion list item counts as 5.

@Html.EJS().AutoComplete("customers").Placeholder("Select a customer").PopupHeight("200px").SuggestionCount(3).DataSource(dataManger =>
            dataManger.Url("https://services.odata.org/V4/Northwind/Northwind.svc/").Adaptor("ODataV4Adaptor").CrossDomain(true)).Fields(new Syncfusion.EJ2.DropDowns.AutoCompleteFieldSettings
            {
                Value = "ContactName",
            }).Query("new ej.data.Query().from('Customers').select(['ContactName'])").Render()
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc;
using WebApplication1.Models;

namespace WebApplication1.Controllers
{
    public class AutoCompleteController : Controller
    {
        public ActionResult filtering()
        {
            return View();
        }       
    }
}

Limit the minimum filter character

You can set the limit for the character count to filter the data on the AutoComplete. This can be done by setting the minLength property to AutoComplete.

In the following example, the remote request doesn’t fetch the search data, until the search key contains three characters.

@Html.EJS().AutoComplete("customers").Placeholder("Select a customer").PopupHeight("200px").MinLength(3).DataSource(dataManger =>
            dataManger.Url("https://services.odata.org/V4/Northwind/Northwind.svc/").Adaptor("ODataV4Adaptor").CrossDomain(true)).Fields(new Syncfusion.EJ2.DropDowns.AutoCompleteFieldSettings 
            {
                Value = "ContactName",
            }).Query("new ej.data.Query().from('Customers').select(['ContactName'])").Render()
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc;
using WebApplication1.Models;

namespace WebApplication1.Controllers
{
    public class AutoCompleteController : Controller
    {
        public ActionResult filtering()
        {
            return View();
        }       
    }
}

Case sensitive filtering

Data items can be filtered either with or without case sensitivity using the DataManager. This can be done by setting the ignoreCase property of AutoComplete.

@Html.EJS().AutoComplete("customers").Placeholder("Select a customer").PopupHeight("200px").FilterType(Syncfusion.EJ2.DropDowns.FilterType.StartsWith).IgnoreCase(false).DataSource(dataManger =>
            dataManger.Url("https://services.odata.org/V4/Northwind/Northwind.svc/").Adaptor("ODataV4Adaptor").CrossDomain(true)).Fields(new Syncfusion.EJ2.DropDowns.AutoCompleteFieldSettings
            {
                Value = "ContactName",
            }).Query("new ej.data.Query().from('Customers').select(['ContactName'])").Render()
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc;
using WebApplication1.Models;

namespace WebApplication1.Controllers
{
    public class AutoCompleteController : Controller
    {
        public ActionResult Index()
        {
            return View();
        }       
    }
}

Diacritics filtering

An AutoComplete supports diacritics filtering which will ignore the diacritics and makes it easier to filter the results in international characters lists when the ignoreAccent is enabled.

@Html.EJS().AutoComplete("Diacritics").DataSource((string[])ViewBag.data).Placeholder("e.g: aero").IgnoreAccent(true).Render()

NOTE

View Sample in GitHub.

See also