Question

I have one field which can contain email or mobile (in my case mobile is 8 digits).
I already tried two approaches (both examples doesn’t work, because ‘element’ do not have validate method):

First approach: create custom method and do both validations there, but then I have to create my own email and mobile validation – I couldn’t find a way how to reuse jQuery validation rules in new methods. This is what I’d like to have:

jQuery.validator.addMethod("mobileoremail", function(value, element) {
        return this.optional(element) || 
               element.validate({ rules: { digits: true, rangelength: [8, 8] } }) || 
               element.validate({ rules: { email: true } });
    }, "Invalid mobile or email");

Second approach: create dependent rules. And also in this case I couldn’t find a way how to reuse jQuery validation rules.

{ myRules: {
            rules: {
                user: {
                    required: true,
                    email: {
                        depends: function(element) {
                            return !element.validate({ rules: { mobile: true } });
                        }
                    },
                    mobile: {
                        depends: function (element) {
                            return !element.validate({ rules: { email: true } });
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }

Answer 1

How about the following validation method…

$.validator.addMethod("xor", function(val, el, param) {
    var valid = false;

    // loop through sets of nested rules
    for(var i = 0; i < param.length; ++i) {
        var setResult = true;

        // loop through nested rules in the set
        for(var x in param[i]) {
            var result = $.validator.methods[x].call(this, val, el, param[i][x]);

            // If the input breaks one rule in a set we stop and move
            // to the next set...
            if(!result) {
                setResult = false;
                break;
            }
        }

        // If the value passes for one set we stop with a true result
        if(setResult == true) {
            valid = true;
            break;
        }
    }

    // Return the validation result
    return this.optional(el) || valid;
}, "The value entered is invalid");

Then we could set up the form validation as follows…

$("form").validate({
  rules: {
    input: {
      xor: [{
        digits: true,
        rangelength: [8, 8]
      }, {
        email: true
      }]
    }
  },
  messages: {
    input: {
      xor: "Please enter a valid email or phone number"
    }
  }
});    

See it in action here http://jsfiddle.net/eJdBa/