Is it possible to paste a list to a select2 field and match each item in the list?

Question

I am using Select2 to manage large lists of data. Users have expressed a desire to be able to paste a list to the Select2 field in order to select various items at once instead of manually entering and matching each item in the list.

I have attempted to use tokenSeparators to separate the items in the list. This and the demo on tokens in the documentation lead me to believe that what I am hoping to do is possible, but so far I have had no joy.

The code I use to instantiate Select2 is:

$('input').select2({
    width: 'element',
    matcher: function (term, text) {
        return text.toUpperCase().indexOf(term.toUpperCase()) === 0;
    },
    minimumInputLength: 3,
    multiple: true,
    data: tagList, // tagList is an array of objects with id & text parameters
    placeholder: 'Manage List',
    initSelection: function (element, callback) {
        var data = [];
        $.each(function () {
            data.push({id: this, text: this});
        });
        callback(data);
    },
    tokenSeparators: [',', ', ', ' ']
});

Just to clarify, in all other respects the select2 field works. It's just that nothing is matched when a list is pasted into the field. I would like to test all the items in the pasted list. Is this possible and, if so, how?

Edit: I have tried the following code but it does not seem to work:

$('body').on('paste', '#s2id_list-unitids .select2-input', function () {
    var that = this;
    setTimeout(function () {
        var tokens = that.value.split(/[\,\s]+/);
        $('#list-unitids').val(tokens, true);console.log($('#list-unitids').select2('val'));
    }, 1);
});

And here is a fiddle I've created: http://jsfiddle.net/KCZDu/.

Answer 1

select2 provides a tokenizer option that lets you pre-process the input. here is a possible implementation for your particular usecase:

tokenizer: function(input, selection, callback) {

        // no comma no need to tokenize
        if (input.indexOf(',')<0) return;

        var parts=input.split(",");
        for (var i=0;i<parts.length;i++) {
            var part=parts[i];
            part=part.trim();
            // todo: check for dupes (if part is already in [selection])

            // check if the part is valid
            // todo: you will need a better way of doing this
            var valid=false;
            for (var j=0;j<unitIds.length;j++) {
                if (part===unitIds[j]) { valid=true; break; }
            }

            if (valid) callback({id:part,text:part});
        }
    }

here is a working fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/XcCqg/38/

also note your original fiddle uses select2 3.2 which is very outdated and may not support the tokenizer.