Getting value of select (dropdown) before change

Answer 1

I know this is an old thread, but thought I may add on a little extra. In my case I was wanting to pass on the text, val and some other data attr. In this case its better to store the whole option as a prev value rather than just the val.

Example code below:

var $sel = $('your select');
$sel.data("prevSel", $sel.clone());
$sel.on('change', function () {
    //grab previous select
    var prevSel = $(this).data("prevSel");

    //do what you want with the previous select
    var prevVal = prevSel.val();
    var prevText = prevSel.text();
    alert("option value - " + prevVal + " option text - " + prevText)

    //reset prev val        
    $(this).data("prevSel", $(this).clone());
});

EDIT:

I forgot to add .clone() onto the element. in not doing so when you try to pull back the values you end up pulling in the new copy of the select rather than the previous. Using the clone() method stores a copy of the select instead of an instance of it.