Myujth

I need to implement auto-complete on the client side. The data is transmitted via the server.
This can be done in a number of ways. The two that I have thought of are:

• 
  Implement autocomplete on the server side:
  In this case I can think of efficiency problems. Is it effective to make a call to the server and back each keydown?


• 
  Data transfer: It is possible to transfer all the data from server to client on first need, but it seems unnecessary to a client that will not use autocomplete. Besides, would it not be heavy to pass all the data at once?

I use nodejs in server and angular cli in client.

I would be happy to hear your opinion, and I am also open to hearing additional options that I have not thought about and which can be effective in this case.

1.) Implementing auto complete on server side will definitely have some efficiency problems especially if you are talking to the backend on every keydown event. But this could be improved by setting up some ground rules like

a.) Only call the api if user enters more than 2 words. Same should go if user types more than 20 words you should not look up for the data.

b.) If you know what king of data persists for example only numeric (Do not allow user to enter any alphabets)

c.) Always limit the data while fetching it from the Datasource to ensure limited number are records are being fetched to display.

2.) Data transfers would also work only if in case you have limited amount of data lets say a few thousand records.

a.) Do not try to fetch all data if you already know that the data is going to be huge. Keeping the point that you mentioned that user may or may not use this feature it wouuld be an unnecessary API call.

b) If the data is limited this approach would be better than 1st approach as once for all you are going to store data at client side and no more unnecessary server calls.