I'm trying to have a variable store the HTML in a div tag, but simply using var a = $('div').html() doesn't store the values of the input tags that lie within the div.

So, my question is, how should I go about saving the HTML and the selected options and values of input tags to a variable using jQuery?

Here is some example code:

HTML:

<div>

  <p>Some Text</p>

  <select name=word>

    <option value=1>Placeholder 1</option>

    <option value=2>Placeholder 2</option>

  </select>

  <input type=text />

</div>

Javascript:

/* a should also have the user values, such that when I use $('body').append(a), 

it has the same user input as the div. */



var a = $('div').html(); 

Thanks in advance.