Option Value placed outside of quotes - html

Question

While I am sure I am doing something stupid, after staring at the code for much too long, I am now stumped. I have created a select box and populate it with posts from a certain post type in Wordpress. This works fine except when viewing the source, the option value is being placed outside of the actual value attribute and all boxes are being marked as selected.
It has to be a simple mistake somewhere but if anyone can spot this, it would be greatly appreciated.
<label for="meta-select-providers" class="package-row-title"><?php _e( 'Provider', 'package_textdomain' )?></label>
<select name="meta-select-providers" id="meta-select-providers">
<?
if( $providers->have_posts() )
{
while( $providers->have_posts() )
{
$providers->the_post();
$provider_name = get_the_title();
$provider_id = the_ID();
?>
<option value="<? echo $provider_id; ?>" <?php if (isset ($package_stored_meta['meta-select-providers'])) selected( $package_stored_meta['meta-select-providers'][0], $provider_id ); ?>>
<?php _e( $provider_name, 'package_textdomain' )?></option>
<?
}
}
?>
</select>
Update
<option value="<? the_ID(); ?>" <?php if (isset ($package_stored_meta['meta-select-providers'])) selected( $package_stored_meta['meta-select-providers'][0], the_ID() ); ?>>
<?php _e( $provider_name, 'package_textdomain' )?></option>
Source:
1647
<option value="" selected>
Post 1</option>
1645
<option value="" selected>
Post 2</option>
1643
<option value="" selected>
Post 3</option>

Answer 1

the_ID() displays (echoes) the value. From the docs:
Displays the numeric ID of the current post. This tag must be within The Loop.
Note: This function displays the ID of the post, to return the ID use get_the_ID().
This code will work as expected:
<label for="meta-select-providers" class="package-row-title"><?php _e( 'Provider', 'package_textdomain' )?></label>
<select name="meta-select-providers" id="meta-select-providers">
<?
if( $providers->have_posts() )
{
while( $providers->have_posts() )
{
$providers->the_post();
$provider_name = get_the_title();
$provider_id = get_the_ID();
?>
<option value="<? echo $provider_id; ?>" <?php if (isset ($package_stored_meta['meta-select-providers'])) selected( $package_stored_meta['meta-select-providers'][0], $provider_id ); ?>>
<?php _e( $provider_name, 'package_textdomain' )?></option>
<?
}
}
?>
</select>