If your question is, is there some built-in thing that will do the search for you, then no, there isn't. You basically loop through the array using either String#indexOf or a regular expression to test the strings.
For the loop, you have at least three choices:
A boring old for loop.
On ES5-enabled environments (or with a shim), Array#filter.
Because you're using jQuery, jQuery.map.
Boring old for loop example:
function search(source, name) {
var results = [];
var index;
var entry;
name = name.toUpperCase();
for (index = 0; index < source.length; ++index) {
entry = source[index];
if (entry && entry.name && entry.name.toUpperCase().indexOf(name) !== -1) {
results.push(entry);
}
}
return results;
}
Where you'd call that with obj.list as source and the desired name fragment as name.
Or if there's any chance there are blank entries or entries without names, change the if to:
if (entry && entry.name && entry.name.toUpperCase().indexOf(name) !== -1) {
Array#filter example:
function search(source, name) {
var results;
name = name.toUpperCase();
results = source.filter(function(entry) {
return entry.name.toUpperCase().indexOf(name) !== -1;
});
return results;
}
And again, if any chance that there are blank entries (e.g., undefined, as opposed to missing; filter will skip missing entries), change the inner return to:
return entry && entry.name && entry.name.toUpperCase().indexOf(name) !== -1;
jQuery.map example (here I'm assuming jQuery = $ as is usually the case; change $ to jQuery if you're using noConflict):
function search(source, name) {
var results;
name = name.toUpperCase();
results = $.map(source, function(entry) {
var match = entry.name.toUpperCase().indexOf(name) !== -1;
return match ? entry : null;
});
return results;
}
(And again, add entry && entry.name && in there if necessary.)
