Is it possible to override this function/class in a child theme?

Question

Is it possible to override this widget function from a parent theme? I saw this blog, but it dealt with a simpler case.

http://venutip.com/content/right-way-override-theme-functions

parent

class Chocolat_Widget_New_Entrys extends WP_Widget {

  function __construct() {...

  function widget( $args, $instance ) {...
}
add_action( 'widgets_init', create_function( '', 'return register_widget( "Chocolat_Widget_New_Entrys" );' ) );

I attempted to use remove_action('widgets_init','???'); but soon realized I could not get a handle on the function that registered it!

I thought about overriding the function and creating a subclass, but still, it is registered in the parent by the name of the parent class.

I thought about just copying the whole class, but child functions.php is loaded before parents.php.

Answer 1

You simply need to run your code on a higher priority than what the parent theme is, the default on add_action function is 10 so you can use:

function s157343_unregister_widgets() {
     unregister_widget( 'Chocolat_Widget_New_Entrys' );
}
add_action( 'widgets_init', 's157343_unregister_widgets', 20 );

This will unregister that widget. Of course, you can still create a new class that extends that widget's class to override the methods you want and register a new widget based on that:

class my_Chocolat_Widget_New_Entrys extends Chocolat_Widget_New_Entrys() {
    public function __construct() {}
    public function widget( $args, $instance ) {}
}
add_action( 'widgets_init', create_function( '', 'return register_widget( "my_Chocolat_Widget_New_Entrys" );' ) );

Answer 2

So here is the clear example :

In functions.php :

add_action( 'widgets_init', function() { 
    require 'child_chocolat_widget.php'; 
    return register_widget(  "Child_Chocolat_Widget_New_Entrys" ); 
} );

In child_chocolat_widget.php [Custom class file, whatever name you can keep ]

class my_Chocolat_Widget_New_Entrys extends Chocolat_Widget_New_Entrys() {
    public function __construct() {}
    public function widget( $args, $instance ) { //override method
     }
}