First, I have this input in a form.
<select id="entry_14">
<option value="Woman">Woman</option>
<option value="Man">Man</option>
</select>
Then I declared this variable.
var mygender = document.getElementById('entry_14').value;
but then, when I document.write, it already shows "Man" before the user even makes a selection, and after selecting woman, it still shows man.
How can I set the value of this variable to change, each time the user selects one of the options?
It executes immediately because your code is not in a function. You need to call this function when the select changes. Add an onchange handler to your select. In this example I pass this.value which is your select lists value to the function. Finally you can do whatever you want with that value.
<select id="entry_14" onchange="myfunction(this.value);">
<option value="Woman">Woman</option>
<option value="Man">Man</option>
</select>
<script>
function myfunction(val) {
document.write(val);
}
</script>
Declare a onchange event handler.
document.getElementById('entry_14').onchange = function(){
var mygender = this.value;
document.write(mygender);
}
Add a onChange JS handler to the <select> element. The example below shows an inline way of doing this...
<select id="entry_14" onChange="updateMyGender();">
....
</select>
<script>
var mygender = document.getElementById('entry_14').value;
function updateMyGender()
{
mygender = document.getElementById('entry_14').value;
}
</script>
I think you are looking for this
var mygender= document.getElementById('entry_14');
var gender= mygender.options[mygender.selectedIndex].value;// for value
var gender= mygender.options[mygender.selectedIndex].Text;//for text
selectedIndex is only required to support ancient browsers.