How do I clear out anonymous functions that are set to trigger via a jQuery document.ready() call?

For example:

<script type="text/javascript">
    //some code sets a doc ready callback
    $(document).ready(function ()
    {
        alert('ready');
    });
    
    //my attempt to prevent the callback from happening
    window.onload = null;
    $(document).unbind("ready");
    
</script>

The alert happens regardless of my attempts to circumvent it. Is there any way to do this?

How do I clear out anonymous functions that are set to trigger via a jQuery document.ready() call?

For example:

<script type="text/javascript">
    //some code sets a doc ready callback
    $(document).ready(function ()
    {
        alert('ready');
    });
    
    //my attempt to prevent the callback from happening
    window.onload = null;
    $(document).unbind("ready");
    
</script>

The alert happens regardless of my attempts to circumvent it. Is there any way to do this?

• javascript
• jquery
• jquery-events

• It's possible to set more than one ready function, so I'm not surprised that unbind doesn't work. A hacky solution would be to set a global variable, and wrap everything inside the ready function in an if to test the value - just change the value and while the ready function will still run, it's contents won't... – JoLoCo Commented Oct 18, 2011 at 22:18

4 Answers 4

You'd probably get the most appropriate answer if you described what problem you're really trying to solve.

jQuery doesn't have a publicly documented way to undo or block document.ready() handlers. If you control the code, you can use a global variable and a conditional like this:

var skipReady = false;
$(document).ready(function ()
{
    if (!skipReady) {
        alert('ready');
    }
});

// skip the document.ready code, if it hasn't already fired
skipReady = true;

Or, if you want to hack into jQuery a bit (beyond the documented interfaces), you can do this:

$(document).ready(function() {
    alert("ready");
});

// stop the ready handler
$.isReady = true;

You can see this last one work here: http://jsfiddle/jfriend00/ZjH2k/. This works because jQuery uses the property: $.isReady to keep track of whether it has already fired the ready handlers or not. Setting it to true makes it think it has already fired them so it won't every do it again.

This works:

$(document).bind("ready", function () { alert("hey!"); });
$(document).unbind("ready");

Seems like a bug to me - all other events in jQuery are able to be unbound. Omitting this one is inconsistent.

Not a direct answer as to the omission, but here's some related info from jQuery docs:

All three of the following syntaxes are equivalent:

• $(document).ready(handler)
• $().ready(handler) (this is not remended)
• $(handler)

There is also $(document).bind("ready", handler). This behaves similarly to the ready method but with one exception: If the ready event has already fired and you try to .bind("ready") the bound handler will not be executed. Ready handlers bound this way are executed after any bound by the other three methods above.

Super old question, but came across the need to do this recently to prevent document.ready code I didn't control from running in certain instances. This can be achieved by proxying jQuery's ready function, rather like a test spy. The following will work:

var ready = $.prototype.ready;

// proxy the ready function
$.prototype.ready = function ( fn, allowed ) {
    allowed = allowed || false;

    if ( allowed ) {
        ready.call( this, fn );
    }
};

All calls to $( document ).ready will now be ignored. You can override this behaviour by passing true as the second argument: $( document ).ready( fn, true )

$(document).ready() is dependent on the onLoad event which is triggered by the browser meaning you can not prevent it from happening. If the alert() is determined by some condition then I would use an if/else statement to decide whether it is called.