Jquery – Get selected value of a dropdown’s item using jQuery

jquery

How can I get the selected value of a dropdown box using jQuery?
I tried using

var value = $('#dropDownId').val();

and

var value = $('select#dropDownId option:selected').val();

but both return an empty string.

For single select dom elements, to get the currently selected value:

$('#dropDownId').val();

To get the currently selected text:

$('#dropDownId :selected').text();

$('#mySelect')
    .find('option')
    .remove()
    .end()
    .append('<option value="whatever">text</option>')
    .val('whatever')
;

If you'd like to get the option with a value of 2, use

$("#list option[value='2']").text();

If you'd like to get whichever option is currently selected, use

$("#list option:selected").text();