The above answers don't seem to work out of the box with Select2 4.0 so if you're hunting for that, check this out: https://github.com/select2/select2/issues/3034
(Use the function like this: $("#example").select2({matcher: modelMatcher});
)
function modelMatcher (params, data) {
data.parentText = data.parentText || "";
// Always return the object if there is nothing to compare
if ($.trim(params.term) === '') {
return data;
}
// Do a recursive check for options with children
if (data.children && data.children.length > 0) {
// Clone the data object if there are children
// This is required as we modify the object to remove any non-matches
var match = $.extend(true, {}, data);
// Check each child of the option
for (var c = data.children.length - 1; c >= 0; c--) {
var child = data.children[c];
child.parentText += data.parentText + " " + data.text;
var matches = modelMatcher(params, child);
// If there wasn't a match, remove the object in the array
if (matches == null) {
match.children.splice(c, 1);
}
}
// If any children matched, return the new object
if (match.children.length > 0) {
return match;
}
// If there were no matching children, check just the plain object
return modelMatcher(params, match);
}
// If the typed-in term matches the text of this term, or the text from any
// parent term, then it's a match.
var original = (data.parentText + ' ' + data.text).toUpperCase();
var term = params.term.toUpperCase();
// Check if the text contains the term
if (original.indexOf(term) > -1) {
return data;
}
// If it doesn't contain the term, don't return anything
return null;
}