Question

Using jQuery validation, if I have many fields on a page, and only require ONE of them to be filled, how do I raise an error only if they are all blank.

That is, the user can fill one or more fields, but if all of them are blank, there will be an error. I want to know if there is a way of doing this with jQuery validation.

Answer 1

Something along these lines should work.

var valid=0;
$("#myform input[type=text]").each(function(){
  if($(this).val() != "") valid+=1;
});

if(valid){
  console.log(valid + " inputs have been filled");
}
else {
  console.log("error: you must fill in at least one field");
}

See a working example here on jsFiddle