Keeping key value pairs together in HTML <select/> with jQuery?

Question

Given a select with multiple option's in jQuery.

$select = $("<select></select>");
$select.append("<option>Jason</option>") //Key = 1
       .append("<option>John</option>") //Key = 32
       .append("<option>Paul</option>") //Key = 423

How should the key be stored and retrieved?

The ID may be an OK place but would not be guaranteed unique if I had multiple select's sharing values (and other scenarios).

Thanks

and in the spirit of TMTOWTDI.

$option = $("<option></option>");
$select = $("<select></select>");
$select.addOption = function(value,text){
    $(this).append($("<option/>").val(value).text(text));
};

$select.append($option.val(1).text("Jason").clone())
       .append("<option value=32>John</option>")
       .append($("<option/>").val(423).text("Paul"))
       .addOption("321","Lenny");

Answer 1

Like lucas said the value attribute is what you need. Using your code it would look something like this ( I added an id attribute to the select to make it fit ):

$select = $('<select id="mySelect"></select>');
$select.append('<option value="1">Jason</option>') //Key = 1
   .append('<option value="32">John</option>') //Key = 32
   .append('<option value="423">Paul</option>') //Key = 423

jQuery lets you get the value using the val() method. Using it on the select tag you get the current selected option's value.

$( '#mySelect' ).val(); //Gets the value for the current selected option

$( '#mySelect > option' ).each( function( index, option ) {
    option.val(); //The value for each individual option
} );

Just in case, the .each method loops throught every element the query matched.

Answer 2

The HTML <option> tag has an attribute called "value", where you can store your key.

e.g.:

<option value=1>Jason</option>

I don't know how this will play with jQuery (I don't use it), but I hope this is helpful nonetheless.