Simple search engine with javascript. Any suggestion?

Question

I would to make a simple search engine with javascript. The idea is to read a server-side text file, parse it and find any expression that matches user's query. And yes, I must use client-side scripting.

Do you have any suggestion ?

Thanks .

EDIT - Details to answer comments

I need to parse 1 single file (max. 10.000 lines). I do not need an auto-complete: I just want to display strings matching query in a SELECT element. Also, I would like to avoid using JQuery if possible.

Answer 1

You will have cross browser problems with the request so using a library that abstracts this IS a smart choice. However here is a possible skeleton for the needed calls.

Be assured that storing a large file in a javascript variable is not very cleaver. Beware on what you are doing!

var words = [];
var query = "";

function parseText(data) {
 // taking care of data
 // check null handle errors
 var data = data.replace(/\W+/g,' '); // replace non words with spaces
 words = data.split(' '); // split and cache this if you need it again without refetching
 doSearch(query);
}

function doSearch(query) {
  // handle the loop trough the array
  // you may save the data into a variable and use regex instead of splitting into an array
}

function handler() {
 if(this.readyState == 4 && this.status == 200) {
  // so far so good
  if(this.responseXML != null && this.responseXML != "")
     // success!
   parseText(this.responseXML);
  else
   parseText(null);
 } else if (this.readyState == 4 && this.status != 200) {
  // fetched the wrong page or network error...
  parseText(null);
 }
}

query = "someword";
var client = new XMLHttpRequest();
client.onreadystatechange = handler;
client.open("GET", "/remote.txt");
client.send();