How to get the value of an input with Web Driver?

Hello,

I'm new to Selenium 2 and I've read through the intro stuff and the tutorials, and I have my Selenium tests up and running nicely so far. However, I do have one basic question that I think I may have missed in the documentaiton, or perhaps it's harder to find than I thought...I need to verify the actual text value of an input rendered on screen ... I'm able to get the correct WebElement with an ID:

WebElement passwordInput2 = driver.findElement(By.name("password"));

however passwordInput2.getText() returns just an empty string (actually all webElements.getText() returns an empty string). Is there a better way to get to the text value of an input? I see lots of stuff on how to do this with Selenium IDE ... is Selenium IDE simply more powerful than the Selenium 2/WebDriver approach with Java?

Thanks so much in advance,
Pedro

try getAttribute("value")

-Ashish
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