setting a value on a select element ambiguous

[Borre]

given a select box:

<select id="test_dropdown">
  <option value="1">somevalue</option>
  <option value="2">1</option>
</select>

and given the statement

$('#test_dropdown').val('1');

the second option will be selected. This seems to be unwanted behaviour (in my opinion, an option with a value attribute should have priority). The erroneous code seems to be located in jquery-1.2.6.js on line 419:

jQuery( "option", this ).each(function(){
	this.selected = (jQuery.inArray( this.value, values ) >= 0 ||
	jQuery.inArray( this.text, values ) >= 0);
});

[laurenty]

I confirm this unwanted behavior. As per W3 standard regarding the 'value' attribute of OPTION:

"This attribute specifies the initial value of the control. If this attribute is not set, the initial value is set to the contents of the OPTION element."

[john]

It sounds like this was fixed in jQuery 1.3.

[Borre]

I'm sorry to say it was not. The problem still exists.

The solution that works for me is replacing jquery-1.3.1.js, line 462-465:

jQuery( "option", this ).each(function(){
	this.selected = (jQuery.inArray( this.value, values ) >= 0 ||
	jQuery.inArray( this.text, values ) >= 0);
});

with:

var selectedFound = false;
jQuery( "option", this ).each(function(){
	selectedFound = selectedFound || (this.selected = (jQuery.inArray( this.value, values ) >= 0));
});

if(!selectedFound){
	jQuery( "option", this ).each(function(){
		this.selected = (jQuery.inArray( this.text, values ) >= 0);
	});					
}

[john]

This was resolved in 1.4. More tests here to confirm:  http://github.com/jquery/jquery/commit/879799fe955f01b85b59fd8a0096d415fc48df03