jQuery Forum

I have a variable declared outside a Dialog, and I need it inside one of the Dialog button functions. Despite some searching, I don't get it. Greatly condensed, here's the structure of my current code.

$(document).ready(function () {
    var neededVariable = [ "a", "b", "c" ];
    //do stuff
    var editEntry = $('#editEntryItems').dialog({
        autoOpen: false,
        //etc
        buttons: {
            'Update': function () {
                //do stuff
                $.ajax({
                    url: someURL.php
                    data: { passToPHP: neededVariable }
                    success: etc.
                }
            }
        }
    });

});

PHP tells me that neededVariable is undefined.
When I change the Dialog button function to  'Update': function ( neededVariable ) { }, that function won't run when the button is clicked. An alert right after this function arguement statement shows  [object Object] for both array or (test) string values of the variable.