jquery tokeninput : how to pass a dynamic array for autocompletion - jquery-plugins

Question

With tokenInput, my autocompletion returns nothing and I don't find why.
First I do a query on the database to find all the contacts for the connected user.
I get an array like for instance :
$contacts = Array( [0] => Array ( [id] => 1 [name] => John ) [1] => Array ( [id] => 3 [name] => Peter ) )
Then I use http_build_query as I want to pass the array through URL :
$contacts_url =http_build_query($contacts);
which returns :
print_r($contacts_url)= 0%5Bid%5D=1&0%5Bname%5D=John&1%5Bid%5D=3&1%5Bname%5D=Peter
Then I use tokenInputs, and I send my array through the url :
$(document).ready(function () {
$("#my-text-input").tokenInput("<?php echo $this->webroot.'populate.php?'.$contacts_url ?>", {theme: "facebook"});
});
the populate.php page contains :
<?php
header('Content-type: text/javascript');
$a= $_GET;
$json_string = json_encode($a);
echo $json_string;
?>
If I open the php page ../populate.php?0%5Bid%5D=1&0%5Bname%5D=John&1%5Bid%5D=3&1%5Bname%5D=Peter i see:
[{"id":"1","name":"John"},{"id":"3","name":"Peter"}]
which I think looks good
But the autocompletion returns nothing :(
Any help much much appreciated !
Many thanks

Answer 1

By default, the search parameter is also sent as a $GET variable, which I imagine would be messing up your JSON encode.
A much better way of doing this would be locally, as below:
$(document).ready(function () {
$("#my-text-input").tokenInput("<?php echo json_encode($contacts) ?>", {theme: "facebook"});
});

Answer 2

$(document).ready(function() {
$("#searchword").tokenInput(
/* Given that $json_res = json_encode($user_arr); in the PHP.
Using <?php echo $json_res ?> OR <?php echo json_encode($user_arr) ?> without quotes and blocks gives the same result.
The other way is to define var ar =<?php echo $json_res?>; in JS and pass it as .tokenInput(ar, {} */
<?php echo $json_res ?>
, {
propertyToSearch: "username",
theme: "facebook",
preventDuplicates: true,
excludeCurrent: true
});
});
// if JSON file has [{"id":"856","product":"sample1"}, {"id":"1035","product":"sample product 2"}], execute the following:
$('#product_tokens').tokenInput('/products.json', { propertyToSearch: 'product' });