Calling the widget id of a mult-instance widget from inside the widget?

Question

I'm trying to output a unique widget ID inside my mult-instance widgets. So far the following hasn't worked. Is there a unique ID and how do I call it?

Thanks.

function widget($args, $instance) {
// outputs the content of the widget
    extract( $args );
    $widget_id = $instance['widget_id'];    
?>
<?php echo $widget_id ; ?>
<?php
}

Thanks.

Answer 1

You can get the instance ID with echo $this->id; ($this is the class instance)

The only time you can't get this id is from the form() function, right after you just dropped the widget (here's the reason why)

Answer 2

To print the ID in php:

echo $this->id;

But this will also print the id before it has been added to the sidebar.

So the id will correspond to widget-[#]_my_widget-__i__

A complementary way to get the widget id is in javascript, after it has been added:

$(document).on('widget-added', function(event, widget){
                    var widget_id = widget.context.id;

                });