How to check if a jQuery UI plugin is attached to an element?

Question

How can I check to see if a jQuery UI plugin is attached to an element? For example, if I load up the .sortable widget, how can its presence be determined?

The purpo

Answer 1

All ui widgets attach their name as true to the element's container data. jqueryui also adds a data filter expression.

var $elem = $('div.sortable-container:data(sortable)');
if ($elem.length){
  // $elem contains list of elements that have sortable widget attached
}