How to select the first element in the dropdown using jquery?

Question

I want to know how to select the first option in all select tags on my page using jquery.

tried this:

$('select option:nth(0)').attr("selected", "selected");

But didn't work

Answer 1

Your selector is wrong, you were probably looking for

$('select option:nth-child(0)')

This will work also:

$('select option:first-child')

Answer 2

Try this out...

$('select option:first-child').attr("selected", "selected");

Another option would be something like this, but it will only work for one drop down list at a time as coded below:

var myDDL = $('myID');
myDDL[0].selectedIndex = 0;

Take a look at this post on how to set based on value, its interesting but won't help you for this specific issue:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/499405/change-selected-value-of-drop-down-list-with-jquery

Answer 3

What you want is probably:

$("select option:first-child")

What this code

attr("selected", "selected");

is doing is setting the "selected" attribute to "selected"

If you want the selected options, regardless of whether it is the first-child, the selector is:

$("select").children("[selected]")