Question

      if ($('#inputRoom option:selected').text() == null || $('#inputRoom option:selected').text() == "")          
       {
         $('#inputRoom option').eq(0).attr('selected', 'selected');
       }

i am trying to know through jquery if the user has already selected an option in my html select element. if there’s still none, i would automatically set the selected value to the first option. however, this is not working.

is the way i do it is correct?

NOTE: i am populating my select element with the data i obtain from a database when the select element is loaded through $('#inputRoom').ready(....):

UPDATE: its working fine now… both joy and felix are correct… moreover, i found that the positioning of my knockout code causes some issue too… fixed it.. thanks…

var trueData = JSON.stringify(data).substring(10, (JSON.stringify(data).length - 2));
var rooms = trueData.split(',');
$('#inputRoom').empty();
$.each(rooms, function (index, value) { 
  $('#inputRoom')
    .append('<option value="' + value.substring(1, value.length - 1) + '">' + 
       value.substring(1, value.length - 1) + '</option>'); 
});

Answer 1

You can use $.val instead

  if (!$('#inputRoom').val())          
   {
     $('#inputRoom option:first').attr('selected', 'selected');
   }

Note

As @Felix Kling said in comment, If you dont have any empty option then you dont need to do this, the first option will be selected by default.