val() returns an empty string in IE6/7

[kowcik]

See the attached example.

[kowcik]

Test case from jQuery documentation

[flesler]

So.. the options don't have a 'value' attribute, it's expected that you get and empty string as return.

I'll close as invalid, but please reopen if you have anything else to say, do include more details when you do that (better test case and tell us what you expect the return to be, etc).

[kowcik]

In IE val() returns empty strings, whereas in Firefox the value is returned also when there's no value attributed. This should the desired behaviour, because val seems to be an abstraction to access inputs values as they would be submitted to the server. Also, there is a specific line in jQuery code that tries to retrieve values from options, but for some reason this value is not returned later. Generally option.text is the right property to read from in IE.

//val function source code
if ( option.selected ) {
// Get the specifc value for the option
value = jQuery.browser.msie && !option.attributes.value.specified ? option.text : option.value;

[flesler]

val() is meant to be used on selects, not on options. If you call it on a select, it will return the value of the selected options, or an array if it's "multiple".

Still.. I pulled out a patch, I'll ask for opinions to see if it should be applied or not.

[flesler]

Fixed and added some tests at [5793].