How to Loop through〈select〉Options with Javascript

javascript
Published on November 13, 2019

Use-Cases of this code snippet

  • Know how to iterate through all options of a <select> element. Get the label and value of each option. Find whether an option is selected or not.

Options of a <select> element can be looped over its "options" property. This property gives a list of all <option> elements inside it.

HTML

<select id="colors-dropdown">
    <option value="RED">Red</option>
    <option value="BLUE">Blue</option>
    <option value="YELLOW" selected>Yellow</option>
    <option value="PURPLE">Purple</option>
    <option value="PINK">Pink</option>
</select>

Javascript

Array.from(document.querySelector("#colors-dropdown").options).forEach(function(option_element) {
    let option_text = option_element.text;
    let option_value = option_element.value;
    let is_option_selected = option_element.selected;

    console.log('Option Text : ' + option_text);
    console.log('Option Value : ' + option_value);
    console.log('Option Selected : ' + (is_option_selected === true ? 'Yes' : 'No'));

    console.log("\n\r");
});

Result :

Option Text : Red
Option Value : RED
Option Selected : No

Option Text : Blue
Option Value : BLUE
Option Selected : No

Option Text : Yellow
Option Value : YELLOW
Option Selected : Yes

Option Text : Purple
Option Value : PURPLE
Option Selected : No

Option Text : Pink
Option Value : PINK
Option Selected : No

Concepts and Methods Involved

  • Getting all options in the select element : The options property of the <select> element gives a list of all <option> elements present in it (returned as a HTMLCollection object).
  • Getting label and value of an option element : The text property of an <option> element gives the label of the option. The value property gives the value of the option.
  • Finding whether options selected or not : The selected property of an option gives a boolean true or false depending on whether the option is selected or not. This holds for multi-select dropdown as well.
  • Why Array.from() is used ? : The options property of select element returns a HTMLCollection of all options (array-like, but not an array). To iterate over this, we need to convert this array-like object to a normal Javascript array using Array.from().
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