jQuery validate with a dynamic number of fields

Question

I have a form with a stage that has a dynamic number of groups of fields, where the number is based upon answers in the previous stage.

I'm generating the fields server-side as an array, i.e.

<input id="foo[0]"...
<input id="bar[0]"...

<input id="foo[1]"...
<input id="bar[1]"...

<input id="foo[2]"...
<input id="bar[2]"... etc

No matter the number, all fields are required & I also need to validate against type & number of digits in some cases. I'm using the jQuery validate plugin for client-side processing (yes, backed up with server-side stuff too) & the validation can't be done inline as the form needs to pass XHTML Strict (EDIT: see my addendum below).

My problem is that I can't work out how to use validate with a dynamic number of fields. Here's what the validate syntax typically looks like for the rest of the form:

$(document).ready(function() {

    // validate stage_form on keyup and submit
    var validator = $("#form_id").validate({

        // rules for field names
        rules: {

            name: "required", 
            address: "required",
            age: { required: true, number: true }

        },

        // inline error messages for fields above
        messages: {

            name: "Please enter your name", 
            address: "Please enter your address",
            age: { required: "Please enter your age", number: "Please enter a number" }

        }

    });

});

Answer 1

actually it should work If you'd use classes instead of initializing rules as validate() options.

Markup:

<input id="foo[0]" class="required"
<input id="bar[0]" class="required number"

<input id="foo[1]" class="required"
<input id="bar[1]" class="required email"

jQuery:

$(document).ready(function() {

  var validator = $("#form_id").validate({
    messages: {
            name: "Please enter your name", 
            address: "Please enter your address",
            age: { 
               required: "Please enter your age", 
               number: "Please enter a number" 
            }

    }

  });

});

hope this works. Sinan.

Answer 2

Have you tried to use custom class rules to define the xhtml incompatible rules?

The example in the docs only uses one class, but I suppose you could combine different custom classes to achieve the validation rules you need. I haven't tried this for myself.