jQuery Autocomplete with Special Characters (i.e. ö, Ä, é, or ß)

Question

How can I have autocomplete match on words with special characters, such as those in German: ö, Ä, é, or ß. For example, I\'d like \"mun\" to match \"München\" and \"Munchen

Answer 1

There's an excellent article on this at A List Apart which includes some Javascript code

var accentMap = {
  'á': 'a',
  'é': 'e',
  'í': 'i',
  'ó': 'o',
  'ú': 'u'
};

function accent_fold(s) {
  if (!s) {
    return '';
  }
  var ret = '';
  for (var i = 0; i < s.length; i++) {
    ret += accent_map[s.charAt(i)] || s.charAt(i);
  }
  return ret;
};