How can I get the date from the datepicker?

How can I get the date from the datepicker?


I use jQueryUI datepicker. It has the function
$.datepicker.formatDate( format, date, settings).
Is there a function reversed for this? As
$.datepicker.getDate(dateString, format)?
With this function, I have a string as "2009-09-08", and the format
for it, I can get the javascript Date() object.
or how can I achieve this with regex?
Thanks a lot.