How to implement “mustMatch” and “selectFirst” in jQuery UI Autocomplete?

Question

I recently migrated a few of my Autocomplete plugins from the one produced by bassistance to the jQuery UI autocomplete.

How can the \"mustMatch\" and \"selectFirst\

Answer 1

I discovered one issue. While the suggestion list is active you can submit your form even if the value doesn't match the suggestion. To dissallow this I added:

$('form').submit(function() {
        if ($(".ui-autocomplete li:textEquals('" + $(this).val() + "')").size() == 0) {
            $(this).val('');
            $("span").text("Select a valid city").show();
            return false;
        }
});

This prevents the form from being submitted and displays a message.