Manually adding & removing validation errors to jQuery validator

Question

I have a search form & knockout-based grid for results. When search is performed, there is some server-side validation taking place on asp.net mvc, and if model state is not

Answer 1

I did something a bit simpler - basically added the ability to more fully register the error into the validator. I added the following to jquery.validate.js (underneath showErrors):

addErrors: function (errors) {
        for (var i = 0; i < errors.length; i++) {
            this.errorList.push({
                element: $(errors[i].element)[0],
                message: errors[i].message
            });
        }           
        this.showErrors();
    },

then instead of calling form.validate().showErrors() you can do e.g.

form.validate().addErrors([{
    element: $('#myinput'),
    message: 'A manual error message'
}]);

Finally because the form may not have been marked as invalid when submitted, you may want to force a validation on keyup or similar:

$('#myinput').one('keyup', function(){ $(this).valid(); });

(Note: this isn't battle-tested but I'm sure at the very least a solution lies down this way somewhere)