What Is a SELECT Tag/Element? - XHTML 1.0 Tutorials - Understanding Forms and Input Fields

A "select" element is an inline element that you can use to define a dropdown input field in a form. Here are basic rules about a "select" element:

• "select" elements are inline elements.
• "select" elements can only be used as sub-elements of "form" elements.
• A "select" element can not have empty content.
• A "select" element can not have text content.
• A "select" element can have one or more "option" elements as its sub-elements.
• A "select" element will be displayed by browsers as a dropdown list with "option" sub-elements displayed as options in the list.

Here is a tutorial example of dropdown list fields:

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
  "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html>
 <head>
  <title>Dropdown List</title>
 </head>
 <body>
  <h4>Online Survey</h4>
  <form action="http://localhost/submit" method="get">
  <p style="background-color: #eeeeee; padding: 8px;">
   Your name: <input type="text" name="name"
    value="Joe"/><br/>
   How did you find FYIcenter:
    <select name="channel">
     <option>Google search</option>
     <option>Yahoo search</option>
     <option>Your friend</option>
    </select><br/>
   <input type="submit" value="Submit"/> 
  </p>
  </form>
 </body>
</html>

If you save the above document as dropdown_list.html, and view it with Internet Explorer, you will see a dropdown list in the form as shown below: