Select2 v4 how to paginate results using AJAX

Select2 supports pagination when using remote data through the pagination key that comes out of processResults.

For infinite scrolling, the pagination object is expected to have a more property which is a boolean (true or false). This will tell Select2 whether it should load more results when reaching the bottom, or if it has reached the end of the results.

{
  results: [array, of, results],
  pagination: {
    more: true
  }
}

In your case, you have the ability to shape your results. So you can actually change your JSON response to match the expected format, which means you won’t even need to use processResults.

Select2 can pass in the page number as page if you modify the ajax.data function to return it.

data: function(params) {
    return {
        term: params.term || "",
        page: params.page || 1
    }
},

And then you will be able to get the page using Input::get('page'). And you can calculate the total number of results to skip using (page - 1) * resultCount, where resultCount is 25 in your case. This will allow you to modify your query to combine LIMIT and OFFSET to get just the results you need.

$page = Input::get('page');
$resultCount = 25;

$offset = ($page - 1) * $resultCount;

And you can use the following query to generate a LIMIT / OFFSET query (based on this Stack Overflow question.

$breeds = Breed::where('name', 'LIKE',  '%' . Input::get("term"). '%')->orderBy('name')->skip($offset)->take($resultCount)->get(['id',DB::raw('name as text')]);

So now $breeds will contain only the requested results. The only thing left to do is to shape the response to match how Select2 is expecting it. You can determine if there are more pages by checking the total number of results and seeing if you’ve run over the limit.

$count = Breed::count();
$endCount = $offset + $resultCount;
$morePages = $endCount > $count;

So now $morePages should be a boolean, which is exactly what Select2 is looking for in pagination.more. Now you just need to shape the response to match the format I mentioned earlier.

$results = array(
  "results" => $breeds,
  "pagination" => array(
    "more" => $morePages
  )
);

And then rendering that

return response()->json($results);

---

Putting everything together, you get this for JavaScript

$("#breed_id").select2({
    placeholder: 'Breed...',
    width: '350px',
    allowClear: true,
    ajax: {
        url: '',
        dataType: 'json',
        data: function(params) {
            return {
                term: params.term || '',
                page: params.page || 1
            }
        },
        cache: true
    }
});

And the following for your controller

if ($request->ajax())
{
    $page = Input::get('page');
    $resultCount = 25;

    $offset = ($page - 1) * $resultCount;

    $breeds = Breed::where('name', 'LIKE',  '%' . Input::get("term"). '%')->orderBy('name')->skip($offset)->take($resultCount)->get(['id',DB::raw('name as text')]);

    $count = Breed::count();
    $endCount = $offset + $resultCount;
    $morePages = $endCount > $count;

    $results = array(
      "results" => $breeds,
      "pagination" => array(
        "more" => $morePages
      )
    );

    return response()->json($results);
}