[whatwg] select element should have a required attribute

[Mounir Lamouri]

On 06/18/2010 01:04 PM, Ashley Sheridan wrote:
> On Fri, 2010-06-18 at 11:35 +0200, Mounir Lamouri wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'm wondering why select element do not have a required attribute. It
>> seems to be perfectly suitable. With the required attribute, select
>> element would be able to suffer from being missing and the :required
>> pseudo-class could apply.
>>
>> Is there a reason why the select element has no required attribute or
>> it's only an omission?
>>
>> Related bug:
>> http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=9625
>>
>> Thanks,
>> --
>> Mounir
> 
> Required as in it should always have a value sent? If so, then it always
> does. The default value for a select element is not an empty string as
> an <option> is always there (unless someone has been stupid enough to
> create an empty select list.)
> 
> As such, some sort of value will always be sent.

I'm getting back to this subject because the answers I got were not
really convincing. Nor the answers from the previous thread [1].

I see three reasons to have @required for <select>:

1. A typical use case of <select> is to have <option value=''>Choose an
option</option> as a default value. Having @required would prevent
authors to write any js check when they are using <select> like that.
2. For <select multiple>, it is possible to not select any option. The
required attribute can be really helpful here too.
3. Having @required for <select> will be consistent and semantically
better. As I see it, with HTML5 Forms, I should be able to do
:not(:required) { display: none; } and still be able to submit the form
(I should not hide submit controls actually ;)). So, even for the simple
<select>'s with a non-null default, knowing it is required would be good
for everyone.

Feedbacks are welcome :)

[1]
http://lists.whatwg.org/pipermail/whatwg-whatwg.org/2006-October/007331.html

Thanks,
--
Mounir