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

If anyone is looking for this solution in later jqueryUI versions, the data container's name of sortable plugin is now uiSortable and not sortable. Im using jQueryui 1.10

i.e to find elements u can use

var $elem = $('#sortable-container:data(uiSortable)');

and to find elements that are NOT yet initialized

var $elem = $('#sortable-container:not(:data(uiSortable))');