jquery: determining which option of drop down is selected

Question

How do you determine which option is selected in a drop-down box using jquery?

Thanks.

Answer 1

$('#mySelect').val();

Will give the value associated with the selected option (the value attribute if one exists, or the text otherwise).

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$('#mySelect')[0].selectedIndex;

Will give the index of the selected option.

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$('#mySelect option:selected');

Will give the selected option element, from which you can grab:

$('#mySelect option:selected').text(); // the text
$('#mySelect option:selected').val(); // the value