Extra data with initial value (ajax select2)

[Chris]

I have an ajax select2 box that works well. When an ajax query is made, the server returns some extra data. eg.

[
{id: 5, text: "My Text Here", extra_field: "Extra Value"}
]

When I want to set an initial value, how do I get that extra_field data in there? A regular option tag.
eg.
<select>
<option value="5" selected>My Text Here</option>
</select>

works for the value/text, but I can't figure out how to get the extra_field in there so I can reference it later. I'm hoping there's an easy way to do this (eg. data tags, or somehow passing in a json hash as the selected value instead of option tags).

Thanks for any help/advice!

[Chris]

It seems one way is to have two arrays - one that you pass in as the 'data' argument when initializing the select2, and then the other you can use to set the selected value (as per this answer: http://stackoverflow.com/a/38141552 ).