jQuery validate: How to add a rule for regular expression validation?

You can use the addMethod()

e.g

$.validator.addMethod('postalCode', function (value) { 
    return /^((\d{5}-\d{4})|(\d{5})|([A-Z]\d[A-Z]\s\d[A-Z]\d))$/.test(value); 
}, 'Please enter a valid US or Canadian postal code.');

good article here https://web.archive.org/web/20130609222116/http://www.randallmorey.com/blog/2008/mar/16/extending-jquery-form-validation-plugin/


No reason to define the regex as a string.

$.validator.addMethod(
    "regex",
    function(value, element, regexp) {
        var check = false;
        return this.optional(element) || regexp.test(value);
    },
    "Please check your input."
);

and

telephone: { required: true, regex : /^[\d\s]+$/, minlength: 5 },

tis better this way, no?


Thanks to the answer of redsquare I added a method like this:

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

Now all you need to do to validate against any regex is this:

$("#Textbox").rules("add", { regex: "^[a-zA-Z'.\\s]{1,40}$" })

Additionally, it looks like there is a file called additional-methods.js that contains the method "pattern", which can be a RegExp when created using the method without quotes.


Edit

The pattern function is now the preferred way to do this, making the example:

$("#Textbox").rules("add", { pattern: "^[a-zA-Z'.\\s]{1,40}$" })
  • https://cdnjs.com/libraries/jquery-validate
    • https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery-validate/1.19.2/jquery.validate.min.js
    • https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery-validate/1.19.2/additional-methods.min.js

I had some trouble putting together all the pieces for doing a jQuery regular expression validator, but I got it to work... Here is a complete working example. It uses the 'Validation' plugin which can be found in jQuery Validation Plugin

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
    <script src="http://YOURJQUERYPATH/js/jquery.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
    <script src="http://YOURJQUERYPATH/js/jquery.validate.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript">

        $().ready(function() {
            $.validator.addMethod("EMAIL", function(value, element) {
                return this.optional(element) || /^[a-zA-Z0-9._-]+@[a-zA-Z0-9-]+\.[a-zA-Z.]{2,5}$/i.test(value);
            }, "Email Address is invalid: Please enter a valid email address.");

            $.validator.addMethod("PASSWORD",function(value,element){
                return this.optional(element) || /^(?=.*\d)(?=.*[a-z])(?=.*[A-Z]).{8,16}$/i.test(value);
            },"Passwords are 8-16 characters with uppercase letters, lowercase letters and at least one number.");

            $.validator.addMethod("SUBMIT",function(value,element){
                return this.optional(element) || /[^ ]/i.test(value);
            },"You did not click the submit button.");

            // Validate signup form on keyup and submit
            $("#LOGIN").validate({
                rules: {
                    EMAIL: "required EMAIL",
                    PASSWORD: "required PASSWORD",
                    SUBMIT: "required SUBMIT",
                },
            });
        });
    </script>
</head>
<body>
    <div id="LOGIN_FORM" class="form">
        <form id="LOGIN" name="LOGIN" method="post" action="/index/secure/authentication?action=login">
            <h1>Log In</h1>
            <div id="LOGIN_EMAIL">
                <label for="EMAIL">Email Address</label>
                <input id="EMAIL" name="EMAIL" type="text" value="" tabindex="1" />
            </div>
            <div id="LOGIN_PASSWORD">
                <label for="PASSWORD">Password</label>
                <input id="PASSWORD" name="PASSWORD" type="password" value="" tabindex="2" />
            </div>
            <div id="LOGIN_SUBMIT">
                <input id="SUBMIT" name="SUBMIT" type="submit" value="Submit" tabindex="3" />
            </div>
        </form>
    </div>
</body>
</html>