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The select Tag
The select tag is used to generate a select element. A select element can contain zero or many options and can be configured to allow the user to select one or multiple options. Here is the HTML representation of a select element with options.
<select name="fieldname"> <option value="value_1">label_1</option> <option value="value_2">label_2</option> ... <option value="value_n">label_n</option> </select>
An option can have a value attribute. When an option is selected, the value of the value attribute of that option is sent to the server. In the absence of a value attribute, the option’s label, which is the text that the user sees for an option, is sent to the server..
Table 3.11 presents the list of attributes of the select tag.
| Attribute | Description | Possible Value(s) |
|---|---|---|
| indexed | Indicates whether the value assigned to the name attribute is indexed. | true or false |
| multiple | The presence of this attribute, with or without a value and regardless what the value is, indicates that multiple options can be selected from the resulting select element. | |
| name | The scoped variable containing the property specified by the property attribute. If the name attribute is not present, the value of the enclosing form tag’s name attribute will be used. | string |
| property* | The property of the action form mapped to the enclosing form tag that will be associated with the rendered HTML select element. | string |
| size | The number of options visible at a time. | integer |
| value | Specifies the value of the option that will be set as selected. | string |
Table 3.11: The select tag’s attributes
For example, here is an example of the select tag. The multiple attribute does not take any value and, when present, allows multiple options to be selected.
<html:select property="propertyName" multiple> ... </html:select>
To generate a select tag’s options, use one of the following tags: option, options, or optionsCollection or a combination of them. These three tags are given in the sections, “The option Tag”, “The options Tag”, and “The optionsCollection Tag”.