jQuery Validation plugin - check if field is valid (but not show the validation message)

Question

I am using jQuery validation plugin and have defined a form validation function as shown below. Based on some user action I am running a custom JS function and in that function I just want to check whether the email and phone fields are valid. But I don't want to validate them i.e. I don't want to show the validation errors, I just need to check if their value is valid.

Something like

$('#email').isvalid();

I have checked out the element method of Validator but that validates the element rather than just checking if it's value is valid. So In other words I am looking for a way to run the rules programmatically. Any help is appreciated!

Form validator function below:

var validator = $("#olForm").validate({
    rules: {
        "email": {
             required: true,
             email: true
        },
        "phone": {
             required: true,
             digits: true,
             minlength: 9,
             maxlength: 11
        }
    }
});

Answer 1

There is an undocumented method check() that does this specifically without actually styling the fields or showing any errors:

var validator = $('form').validate();
if( validator.check('#email') ){
  // this field is valid but no styling was applied
}

Answer 2

There is a handy method called .checkForm() (undocumented as of September 2015), which makes this really easy. Unlike calling .valid(), this won't show form errors when it's called:

// Returns a boolean
$('form').validate().checkForm();