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How to create a jQuery plugin with methods?

I’m trying to write a jQuery plugin that will provide additional functions/methods to the object that calls it. All the tutorials I read online (have been browsing for the past 2 hours) include, at the most, how to add options, but not additional functions.

Here’s what I am looking to do:

//format div to be a message container by calling the plugin for that div

JavaScript

or something along those lines. Here’s what it boils down to: I call the plugin, then I call a function associated with that plugin. I can’t seem to find a way to do this, and I’ve seen many plugins do it before.

Here’s what I have so far for the plugin:

JavaScript

How can I achieve something like that?

Thank you!


Update Nov 18, 2013: I’ve changed the correct answer to that of Hari’s following comments and upvotes.

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Answer

According to the jQuery Plugin Authoring page (http://docs.jquery.com/Plugins/Authoring), it’s best not to muddy up the jQuery and jQuery.fn namespaces. They suggest this method:

JavaScript

Basically you store your functions in an array (scoped to the wrapping function) and check for an entry if the parameter passed is a string, reverting to a default method (“init” here) if the parameter is an object (or null).

Then you can call the methods like so…

JavaScript

Javascripts “arguments” variable is an array of all the arguments passed so it works with arbitrary lengths of function parameters.

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