.text function not working

Question

I can't seem to change the text of the first option element of a drop down list. I've tried:

var e_option = document.getElementsByTagName("option");
e_option[0].text = "Selectionnaire";

and

var e_option = document.getElementsByTagName("option");
e_option[0].innerHTML = "Selectionnaire";

and

var e_option = document.getElementsByTagName("option");
e_option[0].innerText = "Selectionnaire";

However, nothing seems to change the option's text.

The strangest thing is that:

    var e_option = document.getElementsByTagName("option");
    e_option[0].style.color = "red"; 

does change the option to have red coloured font, and

    var e_option = document.getElementsByTagName("option");
    alert(e_option[0].text);

does alert/popup the current text of the option.

This is the HTML:

    ...
    <td id="control">
        <SPAN CLASS="rsfieldcontrol"><INPUT TYPE=TEXT CLASS="rsfieldcontrol" MAXLENGTH=20 SIZE=38 TABINDEX="70" NAME="CONTACTVERIFY1businessPostalCode" VALUE=""></SPAN>
    </td>
    <td>&nbsp;

    </td>
    <td>
        <SPAN CLASS="rsfieldlabel">Pays :</SPAN>
    </td>
    <td id="control">    
        <SPAN CLASS="rsfieldcontrol">
             <SELECT  CLASS="rsfieldcontrol"  TABINDEX="110" NAME="CONTACTVERIFY1businessCountry">
              <OPTION LABEL=" - Select an option - " VALUE=" - Select an option - "> - Select an option - </OPTION>
              <OPTION LABEL="Afghanistan" VALUE="Afghanistan">Afghanistan</OPTION><OPTION LABEL="Albania" VALUE="Albania">Albania</OPTION>
              //I cut out the other 200 odd countries here
              <OPTION LABEL="Zimbabwe" VALUE="Zimbabwe">Zimbabwe</OPTION></SELECT></SPAN> 
    </td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td width="30px">&nbsp;

    </td>
    <td style="font-weight:bold;">
        <SPAN CLASS="rsfieldlabelrequired">* Courriel :</SPAN>
    </td>
      ...

Please note that all select, option and span tags are generated by LexisNexis InterAction, and I cannot change the code. This is why I'm using javascript to change the first option from English to French.

Any help would be appreciated!!

Answer 1

Woops!

The value of the label attribute of the option tag is being displayed instead of the text between the option opening and closing tags. Therefore I just need to write:

var e_option = document.getElementsByTagName("option");
e_option[0].setAttribute("label", "");
e_option[0].text = " - Selectionner - ";

or even

var e_option = document.getElementsByTagName("option");
e_option[0].setAttribute("label", " - Selectionner - ");

Thanks for your comments and help!