jQuery Forum

Here is your code:

1. <select name="test">
   <option value="" selected="">Select</option>
   <option value="Ok">Ok</option>
   </select>
   alert($(':not(:empty)').serialize());

The selector gets all elements that have children ( http://api.jquery.com/empty-selector/ ) which is [select, option, option], and that is passed to .serialize(). The only control there that is "successful" ( http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/interact/forms.html#h-17.13.2 ) is select, since it is the only one with a "name" attribute. The option with the selected attribute is the one with an empty string for a value. So what is the bug?

The :not(:empty) must be select elements that have some value, obviously.

There is nothing wrong with an option that has a value="", it will be serialized if that is the selected option.

It sounds like you are trying to avoid serializing the select if an option with value="" is selected, which would require a selector something like  "select:not(:has(option[selected][value='']))" . 

Yeah!

You are misunderstanding the :empty selector. Your option elements are not :empty, since they have a text node between the <option> ... </option> tags. The :empty selector is not related in any way to the value attribute.