Basically this, but in pure javascript: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2346257/how-to-get-value-of-select-tag-based-on-content-of-select-tag-using-nokogiri
So I have a select list with a lot of countries/states, and I want to be able to select one based on what is between the <option> tags.
<option value="4783">Argentina</option>
(I know i could use the value, but each one is a random mesh of numbers, so i would have to collect each individual one - not economical...)
It is a bit painful, but in pure JavaScript:
for(var i=0,sL=mySelObj.length;i<sL;i++){
if(mySelObj.options[i].text == myValue){
mySelObj.selectedIndex = i;
break;
}
}
The textContent property lets you see what's inside the tag. Off my head and without testing, that should work:
function selectByDisplayValue(selectTag, displayValue)
{
var options = selectTag.getElementsByTagName('option');
for(var i = 0; i < options.length; i++)
if(options[i].textContent == displayValue)
{
options[i].selected = true;
break;
}
}
Where selectTag is the DOM object of your <select> tag, and displayValue is the display value of the option you want to select (for your example, "Argentina" it would be).