Retriving all selected items of a dropdown in PHP using jquery - php

Question

I have a form where I need to select multiple items from a single dropdown and use them in a query.
I have used the tag for the dropdown and used the 'multiple' attribute to allow multiple selection.
I want to get all the selected items/indexes in a variable/array so that I can use it in tha query.
I tried using document.getElementById('statusselect').selectedindex but I get only 1 and not all.
I even tried using $('#statusselect option:selected') in jquery but in vain.
Please help me out with this!!
Thank You.
This the code for the dropdown where the values are fetched from database.
I want to get all the selected values in a variable on a button click.
echo "<td>Status<br>";
echo "<select multiple name=\"status\" size=5 id=\"statusselect\">";
foreach($status_all as $status)
{
if (isset($_GET['status']) && $_GET['status'] == $status)
{
echo "<option value=\"$status\" selected>".status_in_words($status)."</option>";
}
else
{
echo "<option value=\"$status\" >".status_in_words($status)."</option>";
}
}
echo "</select>";
echo "</td>";

Answer 1

jQuery :selected on multiple select must use each to iterate through all the elements. As http://api.jquery.com/selected-selector/ suggested, use this:
<select name="garden" multiple="multiple">
<option>Flowers</option>
<option selected="selected">Shrubs</option>
<option>Trees</option>
<option selected="selected">Bushes</option>
<option>Grass</option>
<option>Dirt</option>
</select>
<script>
$("select option:selected").each(function () {
// your code
});
</script>

Answer 2

Here is a sample HTML:
<select id="multiselect" name="multiselect[]" multiple="multiple" size="5">
<option value="1">1</option>
<option value="2">2</option>
<option value="3">3</option>
<option value="4">4</option>
<option value="5">5</option>
</select>
Using jQuery:
$("#multiselect").val()
Yields an array with selected values