Passing variable to jQuery ui Dialog box

i need to pass a variable called 'test_var' to my dialog box but i don't know how to do that

how can i pass variable from my function that calls the dialog box to dialog box ?

    //a tag calls to starter function and sends variable as parameter

        <a href="#" onclick="starter(test_var)"> go </a>
    //starter func recives the test_var and calls the dialog box 
//what i want is to somehow send test_var to dialogbox in here


            function starter(test_var){

           //some stuff 

            $('#dialog_div').dialog('open');
            return false;
            }
            }


            $('#dialog_div').dialog({
            aoutoOpen:false,
            with:600,
            buttons:{
            "ok":function(){

    // i want to be able to alert test_var in here 
            alert(test_var)
            }
            }
            })

        }

i've tried

function starter(test_var){

       //some stuff 

        $('#dialog_div').dialog('open' , test_Val);
        return false;
        }
and

$('#dialog_div').dialog(test_v开发者_高级运维al , {//coode
})

but it doesn't work

Just make it a top level variable and then the dialog will have direct access to it.