Question

I am trying to set the selected attribute on a select pull down with jquery val(). I only have the caption (aka innerhtml) of the element I want the selected, but not the value.
For example:

A pulldown of states. I want the “New york” option to be selected. I want to write a jquery statement which does

$("#pull-down").val([get value of the option tag which has "New York" as its innerhtml])

Is this possible?

Answer 1

You can use filter method.

$("#pull-down").val(function(){
    return $('#selectElement option').filter(function(){
                return $(this).text() === 'New York';
           }).val();
});

In case that #pull-down is a select element and the option element that contains New York is child element of it, you can use prop method.

$('#pull-down option').filter(function(){
     return $(this).text() === 'New York';
}).prop('selected', true);