jQuery: Unbind event handlers to bind them again later

Question

Does anybody know how to unbind set of event handlers, but memorize them in order to bind them again later? Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Here is how to achieve that, provides a storeEvents and a restoreEvents methods on a selection. storeEvents takes a snapshot of the events on the moment it is called. restoreEvents restores to the last previous snapshot. Might need to twist it a little for parameterizing the unbinding while restoring, maybe you'd like to keep the bound events after the last snapshot.

(function($){

    function obj_copy(obj){
            var out = {};
        for (i in obj) {
            if (typeof obj[i] == 'object') {
                out[i] = this.copy(obj[i]);
            }
            else
                out[i] = obj[i];
        }
        return out;
    }


    $.fn.extend({

        storeEvents:function(){
            this.each(function(){
                $.data(this,'storedEvents',obj_copy($(this).data('events')));
            });
            return this;
        },

        restoreEvents:function(){
            this.each(function(){
                var events = $.data(this,'storedEvents');
                if (events){
                    $(this).unbind();
                    for (var type in events){
                        for (var handler in events[type]){
                            $.event.add(
                                this, 
                                type, 
                                events[type][handler], 
                                events[type][handler].data);
                        }
                    }
                }
            });
            return this;
        }

    });
})(jQuery);