Autocomplete for titles via ajax - rework of past post away from like_escape()

Question

I'm trying to create an input field that can autocomplete only title from a CPT. They don't have to be linked, they just need to pull titles of a cpt alphabetically and searching from the first letters.

I found a great post on the stackexchange, but it is old and it uses like_escape() which is deprecated. I understand you should now use esc_like() . I was hoping that someone can point me in the right direction in how to transition from like_escape() to esc_like() from the code below ?

add_action('wp_enqueue_scripts', 'se_wp_enqueue_scripts');
function se_wp_enqueue_scripts() {
wp_enqueue_script('suggest');
}

add_action('wp_head', 'se_wp_head');
function se_wp_head() {
?>
<script type="text/javascript">
var se_ajax_url = '<?php echo admin_url('admin-ajax.php'); ?>';

jQuery(document).ready(function() {
    jQuery('#se_search_element_id').suggest(se_ajax_url + '?action=se_lookup');
});
</script>

<?php
}

add_action('wp_ajax_se_lookup', 'se_lookup');
add_action('wp_ajax_nopriv_se_lookup', 'se_lookup');

function se_lookup() {
global $wpdb;

$search = like_escape($_REQUEST['q']);

$query = 'SELECT ID,post_title FROM ' . $wpdb->posts . '
    WHERE post_title LIKE \'' . $search . '%\'
    AND post_type = \'post_type_name\'
    AND post_status = \'publish\'
    ORDER BY post_title ASC';
foreach ($wpdb->get_results($query) as $row) {
    $post_title = $row->post_title;
    $id = $row->ID;

    $meta = get_post_meta($id, 'YOUR_METANAME', TRUE);

    echo $post_title . ' (' . $meta . ')' . "\n";
}
die();
}

Original post and credit to the following:

Auto-complete or auto-suggest from list of post titles

Answer 1

Substitute $search = like_escape($_REQUEST['q']); with

$search = $wpdb->esc_like( $_REQUEST['q'] );

(Note assuming $_REQUEST has standard WP magic_quotes_gpc escaping.)

For reference, here's the exact code I put in "functions.php":

add_action('wp_enqueue_scripts', 'se_wp_enqueue_scripts');
function se_wp_enqueue_scripts() {
    wp_enqueue_script('suggest');
}

add_action('wp_footer', 'se_wp_head');
function se_wp_head() {
?>
Search: <input id="se_search_element_id" type="text">
<script type="text/javascript">
var se_ajax_url = '<?php echo admin_url('admin-ajax.php'); ?>';

jQuery(document).ready(function() {
    jQuery('#se_search_element_id').suggest(se_ajax_url + '?action=se_lookup', {minchars:1});
});
</script>

<?php
}

add_action('wp_ajax_se_lookup', 'se_lookup');
add_action('wp_ajax_nopriv_se_lookup', 'se_lookup');

function se_lookup() {
    global $wpdb;

    $search = $wpdb->esc_like($_REQUEST['q']);

    $query = 'SELECT ID,post_title FROM ' . $wpdb->posts . '
        WHERE post_title LIKE \'' . $search . '%\'
        AND post_type = \'post\'
        AND post_status = \'publish\'
        ORDER BY post_title ASC';
    $rows = $wpdb->get_results($query);
    foreach ($rows as $row) {
        $post_title = $row->post_title;
        $id = $row->ID;
        echo $post_title, "\n";
    }
    wp_die();
}

Note the suggestion box just comes up as a list so would need some styling...