What Is an OPTION Tag/Element? - XHTML 1.0 Tutorials - Understanding Forms and Input Fields

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

• "option" elements are inline elements.
• "option" elements can only be used as sub-elements of "select" elements.
• A "option" element can have empty content.
• A "option" element can have text content.
• A "option" element can have any sub-elements.
• A "option" element will be displayed by browsers as an option in a dropdown list.

There are two commonly used attributes for "option" elements:

• value="submitValue" - Specifies a specific value to be submitted if this option is selected. Without this attribute, the element content will be submitted.
• selected="selected" - Specifies that is option is selected by default.

Here is a tutorial example of "option" elements:

<?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 Options</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 selected="selected"></option>
     <option value="google">Google search</option>
     <option value="yahoo">Yahoo search</option>
     <option value="friend">Your friend</option>
    </select><br/>
   <input type="submit" value="Submit"/> 
  </p>
  </form>
 </body>
</html>

If you save the above document as dropdown_option.html, and view it with Internet Explorer, you will see a dropdown list with 4 options. Try to selection different options and submit the form to see what values are submitted: