get text value of selected dropdown menu option using jquery

Question

How can I get the text within the selected dropdown menu option using jQuery?

I have tried:

var title = $("#selectattribute option:selected").text();

But I don;t think it works..

@Robin - .val() returns the value, which is not the same as the text inside an option ==> <option value="this">A choice</option> — Peter Ajtai
– Peter Ajtai, Commented Aug 21, 2011 at 23:58

Peter Ajtai · Accepted Answer · 2011-08-22 00:02:03Z

1

What you did should work:

$("select option:selected").text()

Working example

Since it's not working for you, the error must lie somewhere else. Maybe #selectattribute is incorrect.

To clarify some of the other answers, the value of an option is different from the text inside it.

For example:

<select>
    <option value="red" selected="selected">Ferrari</option>
</select>

// For the above HTML
$("select option:selected").text() === 'Ferrari'
$("select option:selected").val()  === 'red'

Also, if no selected attribute is set in the HTML, the first option will be selected:

<select>
    <option value="black">Porsche</option>
    <option value="red"  >Ferrari</option>
</select>

// For the above HTML
$("select option:selected").text() === 'Porsche'

edited Aug 22, 2011 at 0:02

answered Aug 21, 2011 at 23:54

Peter Ajtai

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Comments

Robert · Accepted Answer · 2011-08-21 23:52:00Z

0

You can get the value of the select box by simply using:

var title = $("#selectattribute").val();

To get the text of the option, instead of the value attribute:

var title = $("#selectattribute :selected").text();

edited Aug 21, 2011 at 23:52

answered Aug 21, 2011 at 23:45

Robert

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