Why <select>'s value attribute doesn't set <select>'s value property?

Question

Supposing a select like

<select name="myselect" id="myselect">
  <option value="a">A</option>
  <option value="b">B</option>
</select>

I can set the selected option changing it's value property:

document.getElementById('myselect').value = 'b';

But I can't do it with value attribute, so the following doesn't work:

<?php
  $myselectValue = $_GET['myselect'] ?: 'a';
  // Do something with $myselectValue
?>
<select name="myselect" id="myselect" value="<?php echo $myselectValue; ?>">
  <option value="a">A</option>
  <option value="b">B</option>
</select>

and, instead, I must write uglier and less clean server-side code.

I think it makes more sense to choose the selected option with <select>'s value attribute instead of <option>'s selected one.

Why did w3c think that <option value="x" selected> is better than <select value="x">? Maybe is there any advantage I don't see?

Answer 1

There's no telling what they were thinking, but there are a couple of cases where value may not make sense:

• The value is invalid
• With <select multiple>

Also keep in mind that the property is different from the attribute.

Semantically it makes more sense to have the list of available options (through <option>) and the select attribute indicating the option (or options) that is actually selected rather than having to reconcile this with an attribute value.