select2/pages/12.programmatic-control/01.methods/docs.md

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title: Methods taxonomy:

category: docs

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Select2 supports methods that allow programmatic control of the component.

Selecting a value

To programmatically select a value for a Select2 control, use the jQuery .val() method:

$('select').val('US'); // Select the option with a value of 'US'
$('select').trigger('change'); // Notify any JS components that the value changed

Select2 will listen for the change event on the <select> element that it is attached to. When you make any external changes that need to be reflected in Select2 (such as changing the value), you should trigger this event.

Limiting the scope of the change event

It's common for other components to be listening to the change event, or for custom event handlers to be attached that may have side effects. To limit the scope to only notify Select2 of the change, use the .select2 event namespace:

$('select').val('US'); // Change the value or make some change to the internal state
$('select').trigger('change.select2'); // Notify only Select2 of changes

Retrieving the selected values

There are two ways to programmatically access the selection data: using .select2('data'), or by using a jQuery selector.

Using the data method

Calling select2('data') will return a JavaScript array of objects representing the current selection. Each object will contain all of the properties/values that were in the source data objects passed through processResults and templateResult callbacks (as in Loading data from an array and Connecting to a remote data source).

$('select').select2('data');

Using a jQuery selector

Selected items can also be accessed via the :selected jQuery selector:

$('select').find(':selected');

It is possible to extend the <option> elements representing selection with the HTML data-* attributes containing arbitrary data from the source data objects:

$('select').select2({
  // ...
  templateSelection: function (data, container) {
    $(data.element).attr('data-custom-attribute', data.customValue);
    return data.text;
  }
});

// Retrieve custom attribute value of the first selected element
$('select').find(':selected').attr('data-custom-attribute')

Opening the dropdown

Methods handled directly by Select2 can be invoked by passing the name of the method to .select2(...).

The open method will cause the dropdown menu to open, displaying the selectable options:

$('select').select2('open');

Closing the dropdown

The close method will cause the dropdown menu to close, hiding the selectable options:

$('select').select2('close');

Destroying the Select2 control

The destroy method will remove the Select2 widget from the target element. It will revert back to a standard select control:

$('select').select2('destroy');

Clearing selections

You may clear all current selections in a Select2 control by setting the value of the control to null:

$('select').val(null).trigger('change');

Examples

Single select Set "California" Open Close Destroy Re-initialize

Multiple select Set to California and Alabama Clear