Javascript: Store HTML as a variable? Asked Aug 01 '13 at 14:13 Active Jan 05 '19 at 00:01 Viewed 1.1k times 0 The HTML: <select id="selected2"> <option selected>1</option> <option>2</option> <option>3</option> </select> I've tried using this code in JavaScript: var dataCap = document.getElementById("selected2"); var userSelect = dataCap.options[dataCap.selectedIndex].text; But console says: "TypeError: dataCap is null" javascript html select options edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12 Community 1 1 asked Aug 01 '13 at 14:13 user2642359 3 1 1 2 1 Are you trying to access the element before the DOM has been fully rendered? That is, are you running the code in the global space of your script, or inside a function that gets triggered after the page loads (or in a script that comes after the select element)? – Aug 01 '13 at 14:16 Please post all of your relevant code. Or even better - prepare a jsfiddle with SSCCE. – mishik Aug 01 '13 at 14:32 I'm running it in a global space. Actually what I need is slightly different fro the above. I need the default value to be blank. http://jsfiddle.net/vccn9/3/ I'm guessing I need to put `onchange=""` into my `` element and use a function from there. – user2642359 Aug 01 '13 at 14:46

Answer 1

You need the set a value for each option:

<select id="selected2">
      <option selected value=""></option>
      <option value="2">2</option>
      <option value="3">3</option>
  </select>

The text between the tags is just for the user to see, but does not return the value.

Also, your javascript variable should read:

var dataCap = document.getElementById("selected2").value;

I added .value to the end so it knows to get the value.