Extra network traffic on deleting term

[dhauslad]

In the best picture winners example, typeahead is configured like this:

$('.example-films .typeahead').typeahead([
  {
    name: 'best-picture-winners',
    remote: '../data/films/queries/%QUERY.json',
    prefetch: '../data/films/post_1960.json',
    template: '<p><strong>{{value}}</strong> – {{year}}</p>',
    engine: Hogan
  }
]);

If I enter "b", it issues a network request to

http://twitter.github.com/typeahead.js/data/films/queries/b.json

for which the response is

[
  {
    "year": "1928/1929",
    "value": "The Broadway Melody",
    "tokens": [
      "The",
      "Broadway",
      "Melody"
    ]
  },
  {
    "year": "1935",
    "value": "Mutiny on the Bounty",
    "tokens": [
      "Mutiny",
      "on",
      "the",
      "Bounty"
    ]
  },
  {
    "year": "1946",
    "value": "The Best Years of Our Lives",
    "tokens": [
      "The",
      "Best",
      "Years",
      "of",
      "Our",
      "Lives"
    ]
  },
  {
    "year": "1957",
    "value": "The Bridge on the River Kwai",
    "tokens": [
      "The",
      "Bridge",
      "on",
      "the",
      "River",
      "Kwai"
    ]
  },
  {
    "year": "1959",
    "value": "Ben-Hur",
    "tokens": [
      "Ben-Hur"
    ]
  }
]

Good.

Now if I delete the 'b' from the input, typeahead issues a request to:

http://twitter.github.com/typeahead.js/data/films/queries/.json

Which comes back with a 404. If there isn't a way to prevent this request, this is a bug.

[whatcould]

Preventing suggestions where the query.length === 0 is a good step. But it might be better to just have an option for a minimum query length before suggestions are shown? It could be set to zero by default. In some cases, you might not want to search on just one or two characters either.

[jharding]

Having an option for a minimum query length before making remote calls is a good idea, I'll have to keep that in mind.

For v0.8.2, I'm going to prevent suggestions from being retrieved if the query is empty or just whitespace.