Validating Dropdown Lists
Question: In a dropdown list, I want to make sure that a choice is selected other than the first one (which asks the user to choose a value), what attributes of the dropdown list do I use to validate this?
Anonymous
Answer: The easiest way to do this is to give the first entry a value of blank and assign non-blank values to the entries that you want selected from. eg:
<form name="myform">
<select name="sel" size="1">
<option value=" ">Please select an option below</option>
<option value="1">Option One</option>
<option value="2">Option Two</option>
Now in your validation you test if the field is blank.
if (document.myform.sel.options[document.myform.sel.options.selectedIndex].value == " ")
alert("You must choose an option");
Just substitute the correct names for the form and selection box that you are validating.
