SELECT¶

The SELECT object creates a menu. Each choice offered by the menu is represented by an OPTION object. A SELECT object must contain at least one OPTION object

Pre-selected options

Zero or more choices may be pre-selected for the user. User agents should determine which choices are pre-selected as follows:

• If no OPTION object has the selected attribute set, user agent behavior for choosing which option is initially selected is undefined. Note: Since existing implementations handle this case differently, the current specification differs from RFC 1866 ([RFC1866] section 8.1.3), which states: The initial state has the first option selected, unless a SELECTED attribute is present on any of the <OPTION> elements. Since user agent behavior differs, one should ensure that each menu includes a default pre-selected OPTION.
• If one OPTION object has the selected attribute set, it should be pre- selected.
• If the SELECT object has the multiple attribute set and more than one OPTION object has the selected attribute set, they should all be pre- selected.
• It is considered an error if more than one OPTION object has the selected attribute set and the SELECT object does not have the multiple attribute set. User agents may vary in how they handle this error, but should not pre-select more than one choice.