How to get a value from a combobox in javascript

Question

I have this function and I want to make the var category to have the value of the combobox that has the id #ticket_category_clone

What am I doing wrong?

   function check () {
      var category="#ticket_category_clone";
          if (category=="Hardware")
      {
      SPICEWORKS.utils.addStyle('#ticket_c_hardware_clone{display: none !important;}');
      }
    }

    SPICEWORKS.app.helpdesk.ready(check);​

edit

It only alerts if I make the code this way:

function check () {
    // var category = document.getElementById('#ticket_c_hardware_clone').value;
   var category ="Hardware";
   alert(category)
          if (category=="Hardware")
      {
        SPICEWORKS.utils.addStyle('#ticket_c_hardware_clone{display: none !important;}');


      }
   alert(category)
    }

SPICEWORKS.app.helpdesk.ready(check);

​

like this? http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/8438/semttuloluu.png

and the code:

<select id="ticket_category_clone" name="ticket[category]" hdpp="ticket_category"><option value=""></option>

Answer 1

Dunno about spiceworks but in JavaScript that's how you can do that:

var category = document.getElementById("ticket_category_clone").value;

If the # is part of the id, add it as well but note it's not valid ID:

var category = document.getElementById("#ticket_category_clone").value;

Looks like you need some debugging. Try the following code:

var category = "";
var ddl = document.getElementById("ticket_category_clone");
if (ddl) {
    alert("found (1)");
    category = ddl.value;
} else {
    ddl = document.getElementById("#ticket_category_clone");
    if (ddl) {
        alert("found (2)");
        category = ddl.value;
    } else {
        alert("element can't be found");
    }
}
alert(category);

What alerts you get?