Select2 search options

Question

I downloaded Select2 jquery plug in and have it all set up - I have a basic dropdown here.

<SELECT NAME="GENDER">  
 <OPTION VALUE="1">MALE
 <OPTION VALUE="2">FEMALE  
 <OPTION VALUE="3">UNDEFINED
</SELECT>

I applied the plug in and it works - not a problem.

I've been reviewing the select2 documentation and what I'm trying to do is instead of searching by gender such as typing Female and Male, etc - I want the user to simply press 1 thus it brings up Male, 2 for Female.

Has anyone attempted this in select2?

Answer 1

I took @Tessa's great answer above and made it work with optGroup.

function(params, option) {
    // If there are no search terms, return all of the option
    var searchTerm = $.trim(params.term);
    if (searchTerm === '') { return option; }

    // Do not display the item if there is no 'text' property
    if (typeof option.text === 'undefined') { return null; }

    var searchTermLower = searchTerm.toLowerCase(); // `params.term` is the user's search term

    // `option.id` should be checked against
    // `option.text` should be checked against
    var searchFunction = function(thisOption, searchTerm) {
        return thisOption.text.toLowerCase().indexOf(searchTerm) > -1 ||
            (thisOption.id && thisOption.id.toLowerCase().indexOf(searchTerm) > -1);
    };

    if (!option.children) {
        //we only need to check this option
        return searchFunction(option, searchTermLower) ? option : null;
    }

    //need to search all the children
    option.children = option
        .children
        .filter(function (childOption) {
            return searchFunction(childOption, searchTermLower);
        });
    return option;
}

Answer 2

The parameters for the "matcher" option has changed since this has been answered. I came across this same issue when implementing a US State dropdown and each option was like <option value="PA">Pennsylvania</option> and I wanted users to be able to either spell the state or simply type their code and it'd work. Based on the updated documentation, I modified it like this:

$('select').select2({
    matcher: function(params, data) {
        // If there are no search terms, return all of the data
        if ($.trim(params.term) === '') { return data; }

        // Do not display the item if there is no 'text' property
        if (typeof data.text === 'undefined') { return null; }

        // `params.term` is the user's search term
        // `data.id` should be checked against
        // `data.text` should be checked against
        var q = params.term.toLowerCase();
        if (data.text.toLowerCase().indexOf(q) > -1 || data.id.toLowerCase().indexOf(q) > -1) {
            return $.extend({}, data, true);
        }

        // Return `null` if the term should not be displayed
        return null;
    }
});

Here is a working CodePen demo I whipped up that demonstrates this using both the OP's select field and a select field of the U.S. states.