How do I override the default behavior of select: within jQuery UI Autocomplete?

Question

I have the following:

$('#<%=txtCity.ClientID%>').autocomplete({
  source: function (request, response) {
    var parameters = {
      isoalpha2: '<%=Session["BusinessCountry"].ToString()%>',
      prefixText: request.term
    };
    $.ajax({
      url: '<%=ResolveUrl("~/AtomicService/Assets.asmx/GetCitiesWithState")%>',
      type: 'POST',
      dataType: 'json',
      contentType: 'application/json; charset=utf-8',
      data: JSON.stringify(parameters),
      success: function (data) {
        response($.each(data.d, function (index, value) {
          return {
            label: value.slice(value.indexOf(',')),
            value: parseInt(value.split(',')[0])
          }
        }));
      }

    });
  },
  minLength: 2,
  delay: 50,
  select: function (event, ui) {
    var city = ui.item.label.split(',')[0];
    var state = ui.item.label.split(',')[1];
    alert(city);
    alert(state);
    $('#<%=txtCity.ClientID%>').val(city);
    $('#<%=txtState.ClientID%>').val(state);
  },
});

It's all happy days, except when I select an item from the autocomplete list I'd like to not have autocomplete populate the $('#<%=txtCity.ClientID%>') element. How do I do it? I saw .insertAfter, is that something I should look at?

Help appreciated.

Answer 1

Try returning false from the select event:

...
select: function(event, ui) {
    var city = ui.item.label.split(',')[0];
    var state = ui.item.label.split(',')[1];
    alert(city);
    alert(state);
    $('#<%=txtCity.ClientID%>').val(city);
    $('#<%=txtState.ClientID%>').val(state);
    return false;
},

From the documentation (select event):

Triggered when an item is selected from the menu; ui.item refers to the selected item. The default action of select is to replace the text field's value with the value of the selected item. Canceling this event prevents the value from being updated, but does not prevent the menu from closing.

You can try it here.