Function triggering early

Question

I am trying to attempt to call back a value from a function, however, the call back is always undefined because the jQuery Date Picker never has a chance to set the var sdat

Answer 1

You aren't setting sdate at all. I think perhaps you meant to do sdate = select_date();?

Answer 2

What does this do for you?

$('#d1').datepicker({
        onSelect: function() {
           sdate = $(this).val(); 
          //set value to the global variable (although not the best approach)
            $("#dd").dialog("close");
        }
 });