Use the value attribute to specify a value to be compared with the comparison value of the enclosing <al-select> (5.2.3) tag.
>>> import albatross >>> ctx = albatross.SimpleContext('.') >>> ctx.locals.opt = 3 >>> ctx.locals.sel = ['spam', 'eggs'] >>> albatross.Template(ctx, '<magic>', ''' ... <al-select name="sel" multiple> ... <al-option value="spam">Spam <al-value expr="opt"> times ... </al-option> ... <al-option>eggs</al-option> ... <al-option>bacon</al-option> ... </al-select whitespace> ... ''').to_html(ctx) >>> ctx.flush_content() <select multiple name="sel"><option value="spam" selected>Spam 3 times </option><option selected>eggs</option><option>bacon</option></select>