retain dropdown selection on refresh [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
retaining selected dropdown option on postback

I have a dropdown when user selects the option, the value is passed on to the same url as querystring refreshing the page. after the page refreshes i wanna retain the selected value so user knows what was selected. How do i do this in jquery?

<select id="hospitalDropDown" onchange="window.open(this.options[this.selectedIndex].value,'_top')"> 
        <option value="http://mysite.com/events/Pages/default1.aspx">All Hospitals</option>
  <option value="http://mysite.com/events/Pages/default1.aspx?hos=Dyer">Dyer</option>
  <option value="http://mysite.com/events/Pages/default1.aspx?hos=Carmel">Carmel</option>
</select>

Basically the logic is trap the selection in some variable and pass it as selected equals true but i am not being able to do it in jquery..I don't have acccess to server side code..either

Answer 1

For a clean method you can set a cookie

Take a look at the following question and the replies

jQuery cookies setting select drop down value after page refresh

*But my favorite is to set the selection in the user session using ajax method.

Answer 2

<select id="hospitalDropDown"> 
    <option value="">All Hospitals</option>
    <option value="Dyer">Dyer</option>
    <option value="Carmel">Carmel</option>
</select>
<script type="text/javascript">

$(document).ready(function() {
    $('#hospitalDropDown').val('<?php echo $_GET['hos']; ?>');
    $('#hospitalDropDown').change(function() {
        location.href = 'http://mysite.com/events/Pages/default1.aspx?hos=' + $(this).val();
    });
});
</script>