Removing an item from a select box

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How do I remove items from, or add items to, a select box? I'm running jQuery, should that make the task easier. Below is an example select box.

<select name="selectBox" id="selectBox">
    <option value="option1">option1</option>
    <option value="option2">option2</option>
    <option value="option3">option3</option>
    <option value="option4">option4</option>    
</select>
15 Answers

Remove an option:

$("#selectBox option[value='option1']").remove();
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<select name="selectBox" id="selectBox">
  <option value="option1">option1</option>
  <option value="option2">option2</option>
  <option value="option3">option3</option>
  <option value="option4">option4</option> 
</select>

Add an option:

$("#selectBox").append('<option value="option5">option5</option>');
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<select name="selectBox" id="selectBox">
  <option value="option1">option1</option>
  <option value="option2">option2</option>
  <option value="option3">option3</option>
  <option value="option4">option4</option> 
</select>

window.onload = function ()
{   
    var select = document.getElementById('selectBox');
    var delButton = document.getElementById('delete');

    function remove()
    {
        value = select.selectedIndex;
        select.removeChild(select[value]);
    }

    delButton.onclick = remove;    
}

To add the item I would create second select box and:

var select2 = document.getElementById('selectBox2');
var addSelect = document.getElementById('addSelect');

function add()
{
    value1 = select2.selectedIndex;
    select.appendChild(select2[value1]);    
}

addSelect.onclick = add;

Not jQuery though.

I find the jQuery select box manipulation plugin useful for this type of thing.

You can easily remove an item by index, value, or regex.

removeOption(index/value/regex/array[, selectedOnly])

Remove an option by
- index: $("#myselect2").removeOption(0);
- value: $("#myselect").removeOption("Value");
- regular expression: $("#myselect").removeOption(/^val/i);
- array $("#myselect").removeOption(["myselect_1", "myselect_2"]);

To remove all options, you can do $("#myselect").removeOption(/./);.

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