:selected Selector

Categories: Selectors > Form | Selectors > jQuery Extensions

selected selector

Description: Selects all elements that are selected.

  • version added: 1.0jQuery( ":selected" )

The :selected selector works for <option> elements. It does not work for checkboxes or radio inputs; use :checked for them.

Additional Notes:

  • Because :selected is a jQuery extension and not part of the CSS specification, queries using :selected cannot take advantage of the performance boost provided by the native DOM querySelectorAll() method. To achieve the best performance when using :selected to select elements, first select the elements using a pure CSS selector, then use .filter(":selected").

Example:

Attaches a change event to the select that gets the text for each selected option and writes them in the div. It then triggers the event for the initial text draw.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
 
<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <title>selected demo</title>
  <style>
  div {
    color: red;
  }
  </style>
  <script src="jquery-1.10.2.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
 
<select name="garden" multiple="multiple">
  <option>Flowers</option>
  <option selected="selected">Shrubs</option>
  <option>Trees</option>
  <option selected="selected">Bushes</option>
  <option>Grass</option>
  <option>Dirt</option>
</select>
<div></div>
 
<script>
$( "select" )
  .change(function() {
    var str = "";
    $( "select option:selected" ).each(function() {
      str += $( this ).text() + " ";
    });
    $( "div" ).text( str );
  })
  .trigger( "change" );
</script>
 
</body>
</html>

Demo: