Question

I have an optional field (say “text1”) which may either be blank or only alpha-numeric:

jQuery.validator.addMethod("onlyAlphaNumeric", 
        function(value, element) {  
            var regExp = new RegExp(/^[a-zA-Z0-9]+$/);              
            return ((this.optional(element)) || regExp.test(value));
        }
    , "Only aplaha-numeric characters allowed");


$("#student-search-form").validate({
    rules : {
        text1 : {
            optional : true,
            onlyAlphaNumeric: "Only a-n allowed"
        }
    },
    messages: {
        text : {                    
            acceptOnly: " Only alpha-numeric characters allowed"
        }               
    }
});

The problem is no validation happens, so if user enters “!&^%(*” in ‘text1’, the form gets submitted, no error checks.

Can somebody please tell me what am I doing wrong?
Thank you.

Answer 1

This is wrong…

rules : {
    text1 : {
        optional : true,
        onlyAlphaNumeric: "Only a-n allowed"
    }
},

For onlyAlphaNumeric:, you can only put true or false.

I am not too sure about optional: but I know required: is valid… so set required: to false. Alternatively, you could probably leave it out entirely since the validator defaults to fields as being “optional” (required:false) unless you specify otherwise.

rules : {
    text1 : {
        required : false,
        onlyAlphaNumeric: true
    }
},

See this similar answer…

using the jquery validation plugin, how can I add a regex validation on a textbox?