How Can I Override A Function In Javascript

Question

I have the following scripts:

<script ... jquery-1.9.1.js"></script>
<script ... dataTables.js"></script>    
<script ... columnFilter.js"></script>

The following code exists in columnFilter.js:

(function ($) {

   $.fn.columnFilter = function (options) {
       //some code...

       function _fnCreateCheckbox(oTable, aData) {
           //some code...
       }

   };

})(jQuery);

What I would like to do is override function _fnCreateCheckbox(oTable, aData) with my own code. Im fairly new to javascript, so would appreciate an example.

I have tried simply grabbing the code above and adding it to it's own <script> tags, but that didn't work. It completely stopped the columnFilter.js from working (which is as expected I guess). Not really sure what else to try.

Answer 1

function _fnCreateCheckbox(oTable, aData) {

Only exists in the scope in which it was created as (function ($) { creates a function scope. You must edit it there. You can't override it outside the function.

EDIT: On a related note

If you are crafty with JS and you are trying to get that function to do something else only sometimes, you could pass some extra variables into your columnFilter plugin/function call and handle them in that function to do something else. I have no idea what column filter is, but let's pretend to call it on an element like so:

el.columnFilter({optionA: true, optionB: false});

If you wanted to do something else based on some data you have you could do,

el.columnFilter({optionA: true, optionB: false, extraOption: true});

Then in your script, depending on what your entire script does:

$.fn.columnFilter = function (options) {
   //some code...
   if(options.extraOption){
       function _fnCreateCheckbox(oTable, aData) {
           //some default code...
       }
   } else {
       function _fnCreateCheckbox(oTable, aData) {
           //my other code...
       }
   }
};

This is a crude example, but just to display your options.