SO fiddle

Test Fiddle mainly for SO Questions

by Nick Craver

HTML

<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8.4/themes/overcast/jquery-ui.css">
<ul id='foo'>
    <span><a>hello 1</a></span>
    <span><a>hello 2</a></span>
    <span><a>hello 3</a></span>
</ul>

JavaScript

var myArray = $("#foo span a").map(function() {
                 return $(this).text();
              }).get();

alert(myArray[0]);
alert(myArray[1]);
alert(myArray[2]);