How to determine if jQuery is running on a page (even if jQuery is /after/ the detection script)

Question

I\'m working on a do-dad that can be embedded in a page like a youtube video. The particular effect I want needs jQuery to work.

I want to load jQuery on the condition t

Answer 1

I've been using this code for to do this very thing for a while now. It also checks for a minimum version of jQuery (in our case, we're still using 1.4.2) before loading:

/* Checks if JQuery is loaded... if not, load it. */
/* Remember to update minimum version number when updating the main jquery.min.js file. */

if (typeof jQuery != 'undefined') {
    /* jQuery is already loaded... verify minimum version number of 1.4.2 and reload newer if needed */
    if (/1\.(0|1|2|3|4)\.(0|1)/.test(jQuery.fn.jquery) || /^1.1/.test(jQuery.fn.jquery) || /^1.2/.test(jQuery.fn.jquery)|| /^1.3/.test(jQuery.fn.jquery)) {
        loadJQ();
    }
} else {
    loadJQ();
}

/* loads jQuery if not already loaded, or if not a recent enough version */
function loadJQ() {
    /* adds a link to jQuery to the head, instead of inline, so it validates */ 
    var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0];
    linkElement=document.createElement("script");
    linkElement.src="../scripts/lib/jquery.min.js";
    linkElement.type="text/javascript";
    headElement.appendChild(linkElement);
}