jQuery get specific option tag text

If you'd like to get the option with a value of 2, use

$("#list option[value='2']").text();

If you'd like to get whichever option is currently selected, use

$("#list option:selected").text();

It's looking for an element with id list which has a property value equal to 2.
What you want is the option child of the list:

$("#list option[value='2']").text()

This worked perfectly for me, I was looking for a way to send two different values with options generated by MySQL, and the following is generic and dynamic:

$(this).find("option:selected").text();

As mentioned in one of the comments. With this I was able to create a dynamic function that works with all my selection boxes that I want to get both values, the option value and the text.

Few days ago I noticed that when updating the jQuery from 1.6 to 1.9 of the site I used this code, this stop working... probably was a conflict with another piece of code... anyway, the solution was to remove option from the find() call:

$(this).find(":selected").text();

That was my solution... use it only if you have any problem after updating your jQuery.

Based on the original HTML posted by Paolo I came up with the following.

$("#list").change(function() {
 alert($(this).find("option:selected").text()+' clicked!');
});

It has been tested to work on Internet Explorer and Firefox.

$("#list option:selected").each(function() {
 alert($(this).text());
}); 

for multiple selected value in the #list element.

1. If there is only one select tag in on the page then you can specify select inside of id 'list'

   jQuery("select option[value=2]").text();
   

2. To get selected text

   jQuery("select option:selected").text();
   

Try the following:

$("#list option[value=2]").text();

The reason why your original snippet wasn't working is because your OPTION tags are children to your SELECT tag, which has the id list.

This is an old Question which has not been updated in some time the correct way to do this now would be to use

$("#action").on('change',function() {
 alert($(this).find("option:selected").text()+' clicked!');
});

I hope this helps :-)

I wanted to get the selected label. This worked for me in jQuery 1.5.1.

$("#list :selected").text();

$(this).children(":selected").text()

You can get selected option text by using function .text();

you can call the function like this :

jQuery("select option:selected").text();

$("#list [value='2']").text();

leave a space after the id selector.

While "looping" through dynamically created select elements with a .each(function()...): $("option:selected").text(); and $(this + " option:selected").text() did not return the selected option text - instead it was null.

But Peter Mortensen's solution worked:

$(this).find("option:selected").text();

I do not know why the usual way does not succeed in a .each() (probably my own mistake), but thank you, Peter. I know that wasn't the original question, but am mentioning it "for newbies coming through Google."

I would have started with $('#list option:selected").each() except I needed to grab stuff from the select element as well.

Use:

function selected_state(){
 jQuery("#list option").each(function(){
 if(jQuery(this).val() == "2"){
 jQuery(this).attr("selected","selected");
 return false;
 }else
 jQuery(this).removeAttr("selected","selected"); // For toggle effect
 });
}
jQuery(document).ready(function(){
 selected_state();
});

I was looking for getting val by internal field name instead of ID and came from google to this post which help but did not find the solution I need, but I got the solution and here it is:

So this might help somebody looking for selected value with field internal name instead of using long id for SharePoint lists:

var e = $('select[title="IntenalFieldName"] option:selected').text(); 

A tip: you can use below code if your value is dynamic:

$("#list option[value='"+aDynamicValue+"']").text();

Or (better style)

$("#list option").filter(function() {
 return this.value === aDynamicValue;
}).text();

As mentioned in jQuery get specific option tag text and placing dynamic variable to the value

I needed this answer as I was dealing with a dynamically cast object, and the other methods here did not seem to work:

element.options[element.selectedIndex].text

This of course uses the DOM object instead of parsing its HTML with nodeValue, childNodes, etc.

As an alternative solution, you can also use a context part of jQuery selector to find <option> element(s) with value="2" inside the dropdown list:

$("option[value='2']", "#list").text();

I wanted a dynamic version for select multiple that would display what is selected to the right (wish I'd read on and seen $(this).find... earlier):

<script type="text/javascript">
 $(document).ready(function(){
 $("select[showChoices]").each(function(){
 $(this).after("<span id='spn"+$(this).attr('id')+"' style='border:1px solid black;width:100px;float:left;white-space:nowrap;'>&nbsp;</span>");
 doShowSelected($(this).attr('id'));//shows initial selections
 }).change(function(){
 doShowSelected($(this).attr('id'));//as user makes new selections
 });
 });
 function doShowSelected(inId){
 var aryVals=$("#"+inId).val();
 var selText="";
 for(var i=0; i<aryVals.length; i++){
 var o="#"+inId+" option[value='"+aryVals[i]+"']";
 selText+=$(o).text()+"<br>";
 }
 $("#spn"+inId).html(selText);
 }
</script>
<select style="float:left;" multiple="true" id="mySelect" name="mySelect" showChoices="true">
 <option selected="selected" value=1>opt 1</option>
 <option selected="selected" value=2>opt 2</option>
 <option value=3>opt 3</option>
 <option value=4>opt 4</option>
</select>

You can get one of following ways

$("#list").find('option').filter('[value=2]').text()
$("#list").find('option[value=2]').text()
$("#list").children('option[value=2]').text()
$("#list option[value='2']").text()

$(function(){ 
 
 console.log($("#list").find('option').filter('[value=2]').text());
 console.log($("#list").find('option[value=2]').text());
 console.log($("#list").children('option[value=2]').text());
 console.log($("#list option[value='2']").text());
 
});

<script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<select id='list'>
 <option value='1'>Option A</option>
 <option value='2'>Option B</option>
 <option value='3'>Option C</option>
</select>

Try this:

jQuery("#list option[value='2']").text()

Try

[...list.options].find(o=> o.value=='2').text

let text = [...list.options].find(o=> o.value=='2').text;
console.log(text);

<select id='list'>
 <option value='1'>Option A</option>
 <option value='2'>Option B</option>
 <option value='3'>Option C</option>
</select>

you can use $("#list option[value='2']").text(); for text of the option with value equal to 2 and you can use $("#list option:selected").text(); for text of the selected option

• javascript
• jquery
• jquery-selectors
• html-select