Combo Box by default selected the last option

Question

I want a combobox by default selected the last option (using jquery):

<select>
    <option>item1</option>
    <option>item2</option>
    <option>item3</option>
    <option>item4</option>
    <option>item5</option>
</select>

Answer 1

Do something like this:

$(function() {
    $("select option:last").attr("selected", "selected");
});

Answer 2

A plain JavaScript solution:

select.selectedIndex = select.options.length-1;

Demo

Answer 3

<select>
    <option>item1</option>
    <option>item2</option>
    <option>item3</option>
    <option>item4</option>
    <option selected="selected">item5</option>
</select>

Answer 4

Use "prop" instead of "attr", of course depending of what version of jQuery you are using.

$("select option:last").prop("selected", "selected");

jQuery prop: http://api.jquery.com/prop/

More discussion on the subject of when to use prop or attr: .prop() vs .attr()

Answer 5

Just using vanilla Javascript you can combine .selectedIndex and .length properties of the < select > dom object in order to achieve this:

document.querySelector("#mySelect").selectedIndex = document.querySelector("#mySelect").length - 1;

<select id="mySelect">
    <option>item1</option>
    <option>item2</option>
    <option>item3</option>
    <option>item4</option>
    <option>item5</option>
</select>