Question

I created this custom method for managing regular expressions:

$.validator.addMethod(
    "regex",
    function(value, element, regexp) {
        var re = new RegExp(regexp);
        return this.optional(element) || re.test(value);
    },
    "Text not valid"

);

And then I used my method:

$(function() {
  $("#registerform").validate({
    rules: { password: {required: true, regex: "^[a-zA-Z09]+$"} },
    messages: {
    password: {regex: "A password can contain only letters or digits"}
    }
  });
});

The problem is that, while I can overwrite the default message for standard validation methods (like required) inside the call to validate(), I can’t do it for custom methods. So, my page will display “Text not valid” instead of “A password can contain only letters or digits”. How can I do to provide a default message and to allow to overwrite it??

Answer 1

Just leave the message out of your custom method if you want to always set a custom message within your .validate() options.

$.validator.addMethod(
    "regex",
    function(value, element, regexp) {
        var re = new RegExp(regexp);
        return this.optional(element) || re.test(value);
    }
);

How can I do to provide a default message and to allow to overwrite
it?

I don’t believe this is possible. After all, it’s reasonable to assume that since one is already using their own custom method, why would they also want to over-ride it.

Your only option would be to use a message inside the custom method or set the message within your .validate() options, but not both.