code to set a select box option value as an object

Answer 1

No, not just like that. Values have to be strings. I'd strongly recommend to use something like jQuerys .data() method to hold Arrays or Objects in an expando property.

If it must be in the value, you just need to JSON decode (.parse) it:

var myValue = JSON.parse(this.value);

myValue.age; // 40
myValue.name // rajiv

But again, I don't think this is a good solution. Have a look at http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.data/ Also, jQuery will automatically convert Arrays and Objects if you put the JSON strings in any data- HTML5 attribute. For instance:

something

If you access that node with jQuery now, we automatically got that object in it's data expando

$('option').data('info').name; // === rajiv