Changing the selected option of an HTML Select element

Vanilla JavaScript

Using plain old JavaScript:

var val = "Fish";
var sel = document.getElementById('sel');
document.getElementById('btn').onclick = function() {
  var opts = sel.options;
  for (var opt, j = 0; opt = opts[j]; j++) {
    if (opt.value == val) {
      sel.selectedIndex = j;
      break;
    }
  }
}

<select id="sel">
    <option>Cat</option>
    <option>Dog</option>
    <option>Fish</option>
</select>
<button id="btn">Select Fish</button>

jQuery

But if you really want to use jQuery:

var val = 'Fish';
$('#btn').on('click', function() {
  $('#sel').val(val);
});

Show code snippet

jQuery – Using Value Attributes

In case your options have value attributes which differ from their text content and you want to select via text content:

<select id="sel">
    <option value="1">Cat</option>
    <option value="2">Dog</option>
    <option value="3">Fish</option>
</select>
<script>
    var val = 'Fish';
    $('#sel option:contains(' + val + ')').prop({selected: true});
</script>

Demo

But if you do have the above set up and want to select by value using jQuery, you can do as before:

var val = 3;
$('#sel').val(val);

Modern DOM

For the browsers that support document.querySelector and the HTMLOptionElement::selected property, this is a more succinct way of accomplishing this task:

var val = 3;    
document.querySelector('#sel [value="' + val + '"]').selected = true;

Demo

Knockout.js

<select data-bind="value: val">
    <option value="1">Cat</option>
    <option value="2">Dog</option>
    <option value="3">Fish</option>
</select>
<script>
    var viewModel = {
        val: ko.observable()
    };
    ko.applyBindings(viewModel);
    viewModel.val(3);
</script>

Demo

Polymer

<template id="template" is="dom-bind">
    <select value="{{ val }}">
        <option value="1">Cat</option>
        <option value="2">Dog</option>
        <option value="3">Fish</option>
    </select>
</template>
<script>
    template.val = 3;
</script>

Demo

Angular 2

Note: this has not been updated for the final stable release.

<app id="app">
    <select [value]="val">
        <option value="1">Cat</option>
        <option value="2">Dog</option>
        <option value="3">Fish</option>
    </select>
</app>
<script>
    var App = ng.Component({selector: 'app'})
        .View({template: app.innerHTML})
        .Class({constructor:  function() {}});

    ng.bootstrap(App).then(function(app) {
        app._hostComponent.instance.val = 3;
    });
</script>

Demo

Vue 2

<div id="app">
    <select v-model="val">
        <option value="1">Cat</option>
        <option value="2">Dog</option>
        <option value="3">Fish</option>
    </select>
</div>
<script>
    var app = new Vue({
        el: '#app',
        data: {
                val: null,
        },
        mounted: function() {
                this.val = 3;
        }
    });
</script>

Demo