What is the correct way to completely remove GoogleMaps Autocomplete?

Question

I use GoogleMap v3 AutoComplete and I need to completely remove it and unbind all event listeners. My code for initializing and binding to events looks like the following:

var autocomplete = new google.maps.places.Autocomplete($("input").get(0), {
   types: ["geocode"]
});

google.maps.event.addListener(autocomplete, 'place_changed', function () {
  // handle events
});

I don't find official way to correctly remove autocomplete and unbind all events. Please point me the right way.

Thanks.

Kanazawa

Answer 1

For the unbinding of events use google.maps.event.clearInstanceListeners.

For removing of the autocomplete-functionality there is no implemented method. You may create a clone of the input before you create the Automplete and when you want to remove the autocomplete-functionality replace the current input with the clone.

//--------------------------------------------------------------
      //this overides the built-in Autocomplete and adds a remove-listener
      //execute it once when the API has been loaded
     (function(ac) {
         google.maps.places.Autocomplete = function(node, opts) {
           var clone = node.cloneNode(true),
             pac = new ac(node, opts);

           google.maps.event
             .addListener(pac,
               'remove',
               function(restore) {
                   google.maps.event.clearInstanceListeners(pac);
                   google.maps.event.trigger(node,'blur');
                   google.maps.event.clearInstanceListeners(node);
                 if (restore===true) {
                   node.parentNode.replaceChild(clone, node);
                 } else {
                   node.parentNode.removeChild(node)
                 }
               });
           return pac;

         }
       }
       (google.maps.places.Autocomplete));
//-------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

     function initialize() {

       autocomplete = new google.maps.places
         .Autocomplete(document.getElementsByTagName('INPUT')[0], {
           types: ["geocode"]
         });
     }

     google.maps.event.addDomListener(window, 'load', initialize);

<script src="https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/js?v=3&libraries=places&.js"></script>
<input/>
<span>
  <input  type="button"  value="remove input" 
          onclick="google.maps.event.trigger(window.autocomplete,'remove');
                   this.parentNode.parentNode.removeChild(this.parentNode);"/>
  <input  type="button"  value="remove autocomplete-functionality" 
          onclick="google.maps.event.trigger(window.autocomplete,'remove',true);
                   this.parentNode.parentNode.removeChild(this.parentNode);"/>
<span>

The script adds a remove-listener to Automplete's. The listener accepts a single argument. Set it to true when you only want to remove the autocomplete-functionality. Otherwise the input will be removed completely.

Flyback

Thanks for the full answer. Please could explain what is the difference in following methods: clearInstanceListeners, clearListeners and removeListener. Should I use all of them or I using of clearInstanceListeners is enough? – Kanazawa

removeListener removes a particular listener, clearListeners removes all listeners for a particular event from a given object, clearInstanceListeners removes all listeners(regardless of the event-type) from a given object. It's sufficient to use clearInstanceListeners – Flyback