How can I get a list of all values in select box?

I am stumped. I have a form with a dropdown list, and I would like to grab a list of all the values in the list. I pulled the below example from w3 schools (yes, I know it’s unreliable, but other solutions on stack overflow seem to be very similar to this). It was not working for me, and I tried plugging it into jsfiddle, but no luck.

HTML:
<form>Select your favorite fruit:
    <select id="mySelect">
        <option value="a">Apple</option>
        <option value="o">Orange</option>
        <option value="p">Pineapple</option>
        <option value="b">Banana</option>
    </select>
</form>
<button type="button" onclick="displayResult()">Display text of all options</button>

javascript:

function displayResult() {
    var x = document.getElementById("mySelect");
    var txt = "All options: ";
    var i;
    for (i = 0; i < x.length; i++) {
        txt = txt + "n" + x.options[i].value;
    }
    alert(txt);
}

Not working on jsfiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/WfBRr/1/

However, it works at their site: http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/tryit.asp?filename=tryjsref_option_text2

Any ideas on how to solve this?

Answer

You had two problems:

1) The order in which you included the HTML. Try changing the dropdown from “onLoad” to “no wrap – head” in the JavaScript settings of your fiddle.

2) Your function prints the values. What you’re actually after is the text

x.options[i].text; instead of x.options[i].value;

http://jsfiddle.net/WfBRr/5/

Advertisement

Answer