Question

Have looked quite hard for this answer but having no luck.

I have 3 select lists in a form. The first list is already part of the form, the second two are dynamically added. These select lists are part of an array named event_staff[].

<select name="event_staff[]" class="event_staff">
<option value="1">Mark</option>
<option value="2">Sue</option>
</select>

<select name="event_staff[]" class="event_staff">
<option value="1">Mark</option>
<option value="2">Sue</option>
</select>

<select name="event_staff[]" class="event_staff">
<option value="1">Mark</option>
<option value="2">Sue</option>
</select>

The user can select a person from each of the lists which are then to be sent via AJAX/Json to a a PHP script which iterates through the array and inserts the selected staff into the database.

For the life of me I dont know how to access the selected values of the lists and send them as an array to the PHP script.

Because the select lists are dynamically created I am not using IDs to access them. I was instead relying on accessing their values by name.

select[name='event_staff[]']

I had tried this code but the alert is returning empty:

var event_staff = new Array();
$("select[name='event_staff[]']:selected").each(function() {
event_staff.push($this).attr('value');
});
alert(event_staff);

Thanks.

Solved with the following, but not sure if its pretty or not:

var event_staff = new Array();
$('select[name="event_staff[]"] option:selected').each(function() {
event_staff.push($(this).attr('value'));
});

Just seems I needed the option:selected. While this doesnt seem to create an array, I have exploded the variable in the PHP on the delimiter and created the array that way.

Answer 1

var event_staff = [];
$("select[name='event_staff[]'] option:selected").each(function () {
    event_staff.push( this.value );
});
alert(event_staff);

Here’s the fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/Rx6Fk/

---

If you instead want the name of that person, use .text():

var event_staff = [];
$("select[name='event_staff[]'] option:selected").each(function() {
    event_staff.push( $.text(this) );
});
alert(event_staff);

Here’s the fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/Rx6Fk/1/

---

Alternatively, you could use jQuery’s .map method:

var event_staff = $("select[name='event_staff[]'] option:selected").map(function() {
    return $.text(this);
}).get();
alert(event_staff);

Here’s the fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/Rx6Fk/2/