You can configure how Select2 searches for remote data using the `ajax` option. Select2 will pass any options in the `ajax` object to jQuery's `$.ajax` function, or the `transport` function you specify.
>>> For **remote data sources only**, Select2 does not create a new `<option>` element until the item has been selected for the first time. This is done for performance reasons. Once an `<option>` has been created, it will remain in the DOM even if the selection is later changed.
Select2 will issue a request to the specified URL when the user opens the control (unless there is a `minimumInputLength` set as a Select2 option), and again every time the user types in the search box. By default, it will send the following as query string parameters:
Sometimes, you may need to add additional query parameters to the request. You can modify the parameters that are sent with the request by overriding the `ajax.data` option:
>>> Select2 expects results from the remote endpoint to be filtered on the **server side**. See [this comment](https://github.com/select2/select2/issues/2321#issuecomment-42749687) for an explanation of why this implementation choice was made. If server-side filtering is not possible, you may be interested in using Select2's [support for data arrays](/data-sources/arrays) instead.
Select2 supports pagination ("infinite scrolling") for remote data sources out of the box. To use this feature, your remote data source must be able to respond to paginated requests (server-side frameworks like [Laravel](https://laravel.com/docs/5.5/pagination) and [UserFrosting](https://learn.userfrosting.com/database/data-sprunjing) have this built-in).
To use pagination, you must tell Select2 to add any necessary pagination parameters to the request by overriding the `ajax.data` setting. The current page to be retrieved is stored in the `params.page` property.
// Query parameters will be ?search=[term]&page=[page]
return query;
}
}
});
```
Select2 will expect a `pagination.more` value in the response. The value of `more` should be `true` or `false`, which tells Select2 whether or not there are more pages of results available for retrieval:
```
{
"results": [
{
"id": 1,
"text": "Option 1"
},
{
"id": 2,
"text": "Option 2"
}
],
"pagination": {
"more": true
}
}
```
If your server-side code does not generate the `pagination.more` property in the response, you can use `processResults` to generate this value from other information that is available. For example, suppose your API returns a `count_filtered` value that tells you how many total (unpaginated) results are available in the data set. If you know that your paginated API returns 10 results at a time, you can use this along with the value of `count_filtered` to compute the value of `pagination.more`:
You can tell Select2 to wait until the user has finished typing their search term before triggering the AJAX request. Simply use the `ajax.delay` configuration option to tell Select2 how long to wait after a user has stopped typing before sending the request:
If there isn't a single url for your search results, or you need to call a function to determine the url to use, you can specify a callback for the `ajax.url` option to generate the url. The current search query will be passed in through the `params` option:
Select2 uses the transport method defined in `ajax.transport` to send requests to your API. By default this transport method is `jQuery.ajax`, but it can be easily overridden:
