jQuery - select tag - get attribute of the selected element

Question

Is there a way of getting the attribute - such as 'rel' from the selected option of the 'select' tag - i.e.?

<select name="menu" id="menu">
    <option value="1" rel="123">Option 1</option>
    <option value="2" rel="124">Option 2</option>
</select>

Any idea?

Answer 1

You can just use the :selected filter.

Here's a fiddle : http://jsfiddle.net/jomanlk/ECAea/

$('#menu').change(function(){
    alert($(this).find('option:selected').attr('rel'));
});

Answer 2

with jQuery

$('#menu option:selected').attr('rel');

with javascript

var sel = document.getElementById('menu');
var option = sel.options[sel.selectedIndex];
var rel = option.getAttribute('rel');

demo with both versions at http://jsfiddle.net/gaby/WLFmv/