"- Select -" or "- None -" does not appear in select list

Are you trying to make the dropdown list say "Choose" instead of "Select" or "None"?

I am not understanding your issue. Please explain exactly what you want to do.

What's the problem?

That it automatically selects the first option when you make it mandatory?

That sounds normal to me.

I based the behaviour of this on CCK select lists at the time this module was created. That must have changed at some point?
I guess I'll change it too.

Fixed as a result of fixing this: #1205532: make other field optional

Nope, it was the other way around.

I've definitely added it
http://drupalcode.org/project/select_or_other.git/commitdiff/ec6625d8d59...

I've tried to follow the logic of options.module's select lists. It works for me and everything.

It is possible that you won't notice the behaviour on existing fields, indeed a field with a value in it will no longer show the 'please select' option, and that is the way the options.module appears to work too. I can't make any further assessment from a two word response. I don't know what you tried, and I can't really take any more action without a thorough analysis or explanation as to why what I did is incorrect.

As far as I can tell this is still a problem. The "- Select -" (when field is required) or "- None -" (when field is not required) does not appear at the top of the list.

I traced the problem back to the core include/form.inc.

Function form_process_select($element) bases its decision on whether to display these value on whether $element['#empty_value'] is set (among other possibilities).

Problem is that select_or_other does not pass that value along in function select_or_other_element_process

After I added '#empty_value' => $element['#empty_value'], to the list of elements that are passed along, all is back to normal and the "- Select -" or "- None -" is back.

 // Create the main select box
  // Note that #title, #default_value, #disabled, #multiple, #options, #attributes,
  // #required, #size and #empty_value as passed to the select box from the main element.

  $element['select'] = array(
    '#type' => $element['#select_type'],
    '#title' => $element['#title'],
    '#default_value' => $element['#default_value'],
    '#disabled' => $element['#disabled'],
    '#multiple' => $element['#multiple'],
    '#required' => $element['#required'],
    '#size' => $element['#size'],
    '#empty_value' => $element['#empty_value'],
    '#options' => $element['#options'],
    '#attributes' => $element['#attributes'],
    '#weight' => 10,
  );

Now I have to figure what #empty_value really does, because the above declaration will declare it even if it is not present I suppose...

Ok, so instead of just adding it to the list, I think adding it only if it is set is the correct way...

  if (isset($element['#empty_value'])) {
    $element['select']['#empty_value'] = $element['#empty_value'];
  };

@dawansv where do you add the code? Line 117?

This issue still exists. Patch for same approach as #14 attached.

#1490208: #empty_value not copied into select element marked as duplicate of this.

thanks, wasn't aware of such a property

This problem is back, in D7.59. It looks like the #empty_value attribute is only used for required fields so optional fields end up with no '- None -' in them.

FYI my work-around is to use hook_form_alter to add a '- None -' to the #options array. e.g.

//add "None" as an option on select_or_other fields
  foreach($form as $k => $v) {
    if(is_array($form[$k])) {
      if(!empty($form[$k]['und']['#type']) &&
         $form[$k]['und']['#type'] == 'select_or_other' &&
         empty($form[$k]['und']['#required'])) {
        $form[$k]['und']['#options'] = ['_none' => '- None -'] + $form[$k]['und']['#options'];
      }
    }
  }