<AutocompleteInput>

To let users choose a value in a list using a dropdown with autocompletion, use <AutocompleteInput>. It renders using MUI’s <Autocomplete>.

AutocompleteInput

This input allows editing record fields that are scalar values, e.g. 123, 'admin', etc.

Usage

In addition to the source, <AutocompleteInput> requires one prop: the choices listing the possible values.

import { AutocompleteInput } from 'react-admin';

<AutocompleteInput source="category" choices={[
    { id: 'tech', name: 'Tech' },
    { id: 'lifestyle', name: 'Lifestyle' },
    { id: 'people', name: 'People' },
]} />

By default, the possible choices are built from the choices prop, using:

  • the id field as the option value,
  • the name field as the option text

The form value for the source must be the selected value, e.g.

{
    id: 123,
    title: 'Lorem Ipsum',
    category: 'lifestyle',
}

Tip: React-admin includes other components to edit such values:

Tip: If you need to let users select more than one item in the list, check out the <AutocompleteArrayInput> component.

Tip: <AutocompleteInput> is a stateless component, so it only allows to filter the list of choices, not to extend it. If you need to populate the list of choices based on the result from a fetch call (and if <ReferenceInput> doesn’t cover your need), you’ll have to write your own Input component based on MUI <Autocomplete> component.

Props

Prop Required Type Default Description
choices Optional Object[] - List of items to autosuggest. Required if not inside a ReferenceInput.
create Optional Element - A React Element to render when users want to create a new choice
createLabel Optional string ra.action .create The label for the menu item allowing users to create a new choice. Used when the filter is empty
createItemLabel Optional string ra.action .create_item The label for the menu item allowing users to create a new choice. Used when the filter is not empty
debounce Optional number 250 The delay to wait before calling the setFilter function injected when used in a ReferenceInput.
emptyText Optional string '' The text to use for the empty element
emptyValue Optional any '' The value to use for the empty element
filterToQuery Optional string => Object q => ({ q }) How to transform the searchText into a parameter for the data provider
inputText Optional Function - Required if optionText is a custom Component, this function must return the text displayed for the current selection.
matchSuggestion Optional Function - Required if optionText is a React element. Function returning a boolean indicating whether a choice matches the filter. (filter, choice) => boolean
onCreate Optional Function - A function called with the current filter value when users choose to create a new choice.
optionText Optional string | Function | Component undefined | record Representation Field name of record to display in the suggestion item or function using the choice object as argument
optionValue Optional string id Field name of record containing the value to use as input value
setFilter Optional Function null A callback to inform the searchText has changed and new choices can be retrieved based on this searchText. Signature searchText => void. This function is automatically set up when using ReferenceInput.
shouldRender Suggestions Optional Function () => true A function that returns a boolean to determine whether or not suggestions are rendered.
suggestionLimit Optional number null Limits the numbers of suggestions that are shown in the dropdown list
translateChoice Optional boolean true Whether the choices should be translated

<AutocompleteInput> also accepts the common input props.

choices

An array of objects that represents the possible suggestions. The objects must have at least two fields: one to use for the name, and the other to use for the value. By default, <AutocompleteInput> will use the id and name fields.

const choices = [
    { id: 'tech', name: 'Tech' },
    { id: 'lifestyle', name: 'Lifestyle' },
    { id: 'people', name: 'People' },
];
<AutocompleteInput source="category" choices={choices} />

If the choices have different keys, you can use optionText and optionValue to specify which fields to use for the name and value.

const choices = [
    { _id: 'tech', label: 'Tech' },
    { _id: 'lifestyle', label: 'Lifestyle' },
    { _id: 'people', label: 'People' },
];

<AutocompleteInput
    source="category"
    choices={choices}
    optionText="label"
    optionValue="_id"
/>

The choices are translated by default, so you can use translation identifiers as choices:

const choices = [
    { id: 'tech', name: 'myroot.categories.tech' },
    { id: 'lifestyle', name: 'myroot.categories.lifestyle' },
    { id: 'people', name: 'myroot.categories.people' },
];

You can opt-out of this translation by setting the translateChoice prop to false.

If you need to fetch the options from another resource, you’re actually editing a many-to-one or a one-to-one relationship. In this case, wrap the <AutocompleteInput> in a <ReferenceInput>. You don’t need to specify the choices prop - the parent component injects it based on the possible values of the related resource.

<ReferenceInput label="Author" source="author_id" reference="authors">
    <AutocompleteInput />
</ReferenceInput>

See Using in a ReferenceInput> below for more information.

If you have an array of values for the options, turn it into an array of objects with the id and name properties:

const possibleValues = ['tech', 'lifestyle', 'people'];
const ucfirst = name => name.charAt(0).toUpperCase() + name.slice(1);
const choices = possibleValues.map(value => ({ id: value, name: ucfirst(value) }));

<AutocompleteInput source="category" choices={choices} />

create

To allow users to add new options, pass a React element as the create prop. <AutocompleteInput> will then render a menu item at the bottom of the list, which will render the passed element when clicked.

import { CreateCategory } from './CreateCategory';

const PostCreate = () => (
    <Create>
        <SimpleForm>
            <TextInput source="title" />
            <ReferenceInput source="category_id" reference="categories">
                <AutocompleteInput create={<CreateCategory />} />
            </ReferenceInput>
        </SimpleForm>
    </Create>
);

// in ./CreateCategory.js
import React from 'react';
import { useCreate, useCreateSuggestionContext } from 'react-admin';
import {
    Button,
    Dialog,
    DialogActions,
    DialogContent,
    TextField,
} from '@mui/material';

const CreateCategory = () => {
    const { filter, onCancel, onCreate } = useCreateSuggestionContext();
    const [create] = useCreate();
    const [value, setValue] = React.useState(filter || '');

    const handleSubmit = event => {
        event.preventDefault();
        create(
          'categories',
          { data: { title: value } },
          {
              onSuccess: (data) => {
                  setValue('');
                  onCreate(data);
              },
          }
        );
    };

    return (
        <Dialog open onClose={onCancel}>
            <form onSubmit={handleSubmit}>
                <DialogContent>
                    <TextField
                        label="New category name"
                        value={value}
                        onChange={event => setValue(event.target.value)}
                        autoFocus
                    />
                </DialogContent>
                <DialogActions>
                    <Button type="submit">Save</Button>
                    <Button onClick={onCancel}>Cancel</Button>
                </DialogActions>
            </form>
        </Dialog>
    );
};

If you just need to ask users for a single string to create the new option, you can use the onCreate prop instead.

debounce

When used inside a <ReferenceInput>, <AutocompleteInput> will call dataProvider.getList() with the current input value as filter after a delay of 250ms. This is to avoid calling the API too often while users are typing their query.

This delay can be customized by setting the debounce prop.

<ReferenceInput label="Author" source="author_id" reference="authors">
    <AutocompleteInput debounce={500} />
</ReferenceInput>

emptyText

If the input isn’t required (using validate={required()}), and you need a choice to represent the empty value, set emptyText prop and a choice will be added at the top, with its value as label.

<AutocompleteInput source="author_id" choices={choices} emptyText="No author" />

The emptyText prop accepts either a string or a React Element.

And if you want to hide that empty choice, make the input required.

<AutocompleteInput source="author_id" choices={choices} validate={required()} />

emptyValue

If the input isn’t required (using validate={required()}), users can select an empty choice. The default value for that empty choice is the empty string (''), or null if the input is inside a <ReferenceInput>.

You can override this value with the emptyValue prop.

<AutocompleteInput source="author_id" choices={choices} emptyValue={0} />

Tip: While you can set emptyValue to a non-string value (e.g. 0), you cannot use null or undefined, as it would turn the <AutocompleteInput> into an uncontrolled component. If you need the empty choice to be stored as null or undefined, use the parse prop to convert the default empty value (‘’) to null or undefined, or use the sanitizeEmptyValues prop on the Form component.

filterToQuery

When used inside a <ReferenceInput>, whenever users type a string in the autocomplete input, <AutocompleteInput> calls dataProvider.getList() using the string as filter, to return a filtered list of possible options from the reference resource. This filter is built using the filterToQuery prop.

By default, the filter is built using the q parameter. This means that if the user types the string ‘lorem’, the filter will be { q: 'lorem' }.

You can customize the filter by setting the filterToQuery prop. It should be a function that returns a filter object.

const filterToQuery = searchText => ({ name_ilike: `%${searchText}%` });

<ReferenceInput label="Author" source="author_id" reference="authors">
    <AutocompleteInput filterToQuery={filterToQuery} />
</ReferenceInput>

onCreate

Use the onCreate prop to allow users to create new options on-the-fly. Its value must be a function. This lets you render a prompt to ask users about the new value. You can return either the new choice directly or a Promise resolving to the new choice.

import { AutocompleteInput, Create, SimpleForm, TextInput } from 'react-admin';

const PostCreate = () => {
    const categories = [
        { name: 'Tech', id: 'tech' },
        { name: 'Lifestyle', id: 'lifestyle' },
    ];
    return (
        <Create>
            <SimpleForm>
                <TextInput source="title" />
                <AutocompleteInput
                    onCreate={() => {
                        const newCategoryName = prompt('Enter a new category');
                        const newCategory = { id: newCategoryName.toLowerCase(), name: newCategoryName };
                        categories.push(newCategory);
                        return newCategory;
                    }}
                    source="category"
                    choices={categories}
                />
            </SimpleForm>
        </Create>
    );
}

If a prompt is not enough, you can use the create prop to render a custom component instead.

optionText

You can customize the property to use for the option name (instead of the default name) thanks to the optionText prop:

const choices = [
    { id: 'tech', label: 'Tech' },
    { id: 'lifestyle', label: 'Lifestyle' },
    { id: 'people', label: 'People' },
];
<AutocompleteInput source="category" choices={choices} optionText="label" />

optionText is particularly useful when the choices are records fetched from another resource, and <AutocompleteInput> is a child of a <ReferenceInput>. By default, react-admin uses the recordRepresentation function to display the record label. But if you set the optionText prop, react-admin will use it instead.

import { AutocompleteInput, ReferenceInput } from 'react-admin';

<ReferenceInput label="Author" source="author_id" reference="authors">
    <AutocompleteInput optionText="last_name" />
</ReferenceInput>

optionText also accepts a function, so you can shape the option text at will:

const choices = [
   { id: 123, first_name: 'Leo', last_name: 'Tolstoi' },
   { id: 456, first_name: 'Jane', last_name: 'Austen' },
];
const optionRenderer = choice => `${choice.first_name} ${choice.last_name}`;
<AutocompleteInput source="author_id" choices={choices} optionText={optionRenderer} />

optionText also accepts a React Element, that will be rendered inside a <RecordContext> using the related choice as the record prop. You can use Field components there. However, using an element as optionText implies that you also set two more props, inputText and matchSuggestion. See Using A Custom Element For Options for more details.

optionValue

You can customize the property to use for the option value (instead of the default id) thanks to the optionValue prop:

const choices = [
    { _id: 'tech', name: 'Tech' },
    { _id: 'lifestyle', name: 'Lifestyle' },
    { _id: 'people', name: 'People' },
];
<AutocompleteInput
    source="category"
    choices={choices}
    optionValue="_id"
/>

shouldRenderSuggestions

When dealing with a large amount of choices you may need to limit the number of suggestions that are rendered in order to maintain acceptable performance. shouldRenderSuggestions is an optional prop that allows you to set conditions on when to render suggestions. An easy way to improve performance would be to skip rendering until the user has entered 2 or 3 characters in the search box. This lowers the result set significantly and might be all you need (depending on your data set).

<AutocompleteInput 
    source="category"
    choices={choices}
    shouldRenderSuggestions={(val) => { return val.trim().length > 2 }}
/>

suggestionLimit

The choices prop can be very large, and rendering all of them would be very slow. To limit the number of suggestions displayed at any time, set the suggestionLimit prop:

<AutocompleteInput
    source="category"
    choices={choices}
    suggestionLimit={10}
/>

If you’re using <AutocompleteInput> inside a <ReferenceInput>, limit the number of choices returned by the API instead, using the perPage prop of the <ReferenceInput>.

<ReferenceInput label="Author" source="author_id" reference="authors" perPage={10}>
    <AutocompleteInput />
</ReferenceInput>

sx: CSS API

The <AutocompleteInput> component accepts the usual className prop. You can also override many styles of the inner components thanks to the sx property (as most MUI components, see their documentation about it). This property accepts the following subclasses:

Rule name Description
& .RaSelectInput-textField Applied to the underlying TextField component

To override the style of all instances of <AutocompleteInput> using the MUI style overrides, use the RaAutocompleteInput key.

Refer to the MUI <Autocomplete> component to know its CSS API.

translateChoice

The choices are translated by default, so you can use translation identifiers as choices:

const choices = [
   { id: 'M', name: 'myroot.gender.male' },
   { id: 'F', name: 'myroot.gender.female' },
];

However, in some cases (e.g. inside a <ReferenceInput>), you may not want the choice to be translated. In that case, set the translateChoice prop to false.

<AutocompleteInput source="gender" choices={choices} translateChoice={false}/>

Additional Props

<AutocompleteInput> renders a MUI <Autocomplete> component and it accepts the <Autocomplete> props:

<AutocompleteInput source="category" size="large" />

Using In A ReferenceInput

If you want to populate the choices attribute with a list of related records, you should decorate <AutocompleteInput> with <ReferenceInput>, and leave the choices empty:

import { AutocompleteInput, ReferenceInput } from 'react-admin';

<ReferenceInput label="Author" source="author_id" reference="authors">
    <AutocompleteInput />
</ReferenceInput>

In that case, <AutocompleteInput> uses the recordRepresentation to render each choice from the list of possible records. You can override this behavior by setting the optionText prop:

import { AutocompleteInput, ReferenceInput } from 'react-admin';

<ReferenceInput label="Author" source="author_id" reference="authors">
    <AutocompleteInput optionText="last_name" />
</ReferenceInput>

Whenever users type a string in the autocomplete input, <AutocompleteInput> calls dataProvider.getList() using the string as filter, to return a filtered list of possible options from the reference resource. This filter is built using the filterToQuery prop. You may want to customize that function to match the filtering capabilities of your API:

const filterToQuery = searchText => ({ name_ilike: `%${searchText}%` });

<ReferenceInput label="Author" source="author_id" reference="authors">
    <AutocompleteInput filterToQuery={filterToQuery} />
</ReferenceInput>

Also, <AutocompleteInput> doesn’t call dataProvider.getList() on every keystroke. It waits for the user to stop typing for 250ms before calling the API. You can customize this delay using the debounce prop:

<ReferenceInput label="Author" source="author_id" reference="authors">
    <AutocompleteInput debounce={500} />
</ReferenceInput>

Using A Custom Element For Options

You can pass a custom element as optionText to have <AutocompleteInput> render each suggestion in a custom way.

<AutocompleteInput> will render the custom option element inside a <RecordContext>, using the related choice as the record prop. You can use Field components there.

However, as the underlying MUI <Autocomplete> component requires that the current selection is a string, you must also pass a function as the inputText prop. This function should return a text representation of the current selection. You should also pass a matchSuggestion function to filter the choices based on the current selection.

const choices = [
   { id: 123, first_name: 'Leo', last_name: 'Tolstoi', avatar:'/penguin' },
   { id: 456, first_name: 'Jane', last_name: 'Austen', avatar:'/panda' },
];
const OptionRenderer = () => {
    const record = useRecordContext();
    return (
        <span>
            <img src={record.avatar} />
            {record.first_name} {record.last_name}
        </span>
    );
};
const inputText = choice => `${choice.first_name} ${choice.last_name}`;
const matchSuggestion = (filter, choice) => {
    return (
        choice.first_name.toLowerCase().includes(filter.toLowerCase())
        || choice.last_name.toLowerCase().includes(filter.toLowerCase())
    );
};

<AutocompleteInput
    source="author_id"
    choices={choices}
    optionText={<OptionRenderer />}
    inputText={inputText}
    matchSuggestion={matchSuggestion}
/>

Creating New Choices

The <AutocompleteInput> can allow users to create a new choice if either the create or onCreate prop is provided.

Use the onCreate prop when you only require users to provide a simple string and a prompt is enough. You can return either the new choice directly or a Promise resolving to the new choice.

import { AutocompleteInput, Create, SimpleForm, TextInput } from 'react-admin';

const PostCreate = () => {
    const categories = [
        { name: 'Tech', id: 'tech' },
        { name: 'Lifestyle', id: 'lifestyle' },
    ];
    return (
        <Create>
            <SimpleForm>
                <TextInput source="title" />
                <AutocompleteInput
                    onCreate={(filter) => {
                        const newCategoryName = window.prompt('Enter a new category', filter);
                        const newCategory = { id: categories.length + 1, name: newCategoryName };
                        categories.push(newCategory);
                        return newCategory;
                    }}
                    source="category"
                    choices={categories}
                />
            </SimpleForm>
        </Create>
    );
}

Use the create prop when you want a more polished or complex UI. For example an MUI <Dialog> asking for multiple fields because the choices are from a referenced resource.

import {
    AutocompleteInput,
    Create,
    ReferenceInput,
    SimpleForm,
    TextInput,
    useCreate,
    useCreateSuggestionContext
} from 'react-admin';

import {
    Box,
    BoxProps,
    Button,
    Dialog,
    DialogActions,
    DialogContent,
    TextField,
} from '@mui/material';

const PostCreate = () => {
    return (
        <Create>
            <SimpleForm>
                <TextInput source="title" />
                <ReferenceInput source="category_id" reference="categories">
                    <AutocompleteInput create={<CreateCategory />} />
                </ReferenceInput>
            </SimpleForm>
        </Create>
    );
}

const CreateCategory = () => {
    const { filter, onCancel, onCreate } = useCreateSuggestionContext();
    const [value, setValue] = React.useState(filter || '');
    const [create] = useCreate();

    const handleSubmit = event => {
        event.preventDefault();
        create(
            'categories',
            {
                data: {
                    title: value,
                },
            },
            {
                onSuccess: (data) => {
                    setValue('');
                    onCreate(data);
                },
            }
        );
    };

    return (
        <Dialog open onClose={onCancel}>
            <form onSubmit={handleSubmit}>
                <DialogContent>
                    <TextField
                        label="New category name"
                        value={value}
                        onChange={event => setValue(event.target.value)}
                        autoFocus
                    />
                </DialogContent>
                <DialogActions>
                    <Button type="submit">Save</Button>
                    <Button onClick={onCancel}>Cancel</Button>
                </DialogActions>
            </form>
        </Dialog>
    );
};

Tip: As showcased in this example, react-admin provides a convenient hook for accessing the filter the user has already input in the <AutocompleteInput>: useCreateSuggestionContext.

The Create %{item} option will only be displayed once the user has already set a filter (by typing in some input). If you expect your users to create new items often, you can make this more user-friendly by adding a placeholder text like this:

const PostCreate = () => {
    const categories = [
        { name: 'Tech', id: 'tech' },
        { name: 'Lifestyle', id: 'lifestyle' },
    ];
    return (
        <Create>
            <SimpleForm>
                <TextInput source="title" />
                <AutocompleteInput
                    onCreate={(filter) => {
                        const newCategoryName = window.prompt('Enter a new category', filter);
                        const newCategory = { id: categories.length + 1, name: newCategoryName };
                        categories.push(newCategory);
                        return newCategory;
                    }}
                    source="category"
                    choices={categories}
+                   TextFieldProps={{
+                       placeholder: 'Start typing to create a new item',
+                   }}
                />
            </SimpleForm>
        </Create>
    );
}