How to get selected value from Dropdown list in JavaScript

Question

How can you get the selected value from drop down list using JavaScript? I have tried the following but it does not work.

var sel = document.getElementById(\         


        

Answer 1

Direct value should work just fine:

var sv = sel.value;
alert(sv);

The only reason your code might fail is when there is no item selected, then the selectedIndex returns -1 and the code breaks.