[jquery] How to get the text of the selected value of a dropdown list?

Possible Duplicate:
jQuery get specific option tag text
How to get the text of the selected option of a select using jquery?

I have a dropdown list and I want to know the text of the selected item. For example:

<select>
    <option value="1">Volvo</option>
    <option value="2">Saab</option>
    <option value="3">Mercedes</option>
</select>

If I know the selected value, how can I get it's text value? For instance, if the value is 1 how can I get Volvo?

Help much appreciated.

Hi if you are having dropdownlist like this

<select id="testID">
<option value="1">Value1</option>
<option value="2">Value2</option>
<option value="3">Value3</option>
<option value="4">Value4</option>
<option value="5">Value5</option>
<option value="6">Value6</option>
</select>
<input type="button" value="Get dropdown selected Value" onclick="getHTML();">

after giving id to dropdownlist you just need to add jquery code like this

function getHTML()
{
      var display=$('#testID option:selected').html();
      alert(display);
}

$("#select_id").find("option:selected").text();

It is helpful if your control is on Server side. In .NET it looks like:

$('#<%= dropdownID.ClientID %>').find("option:selected").text();

The easiest way is through css3 $("select option:selected") and then use the .text() or .html() function. depending on what you want to have.