Validation of radio button group using jQuery validation plugin

How to perform validation for a radio button group (one radio button should be selected) using jQuery validation plugin?

With newer releases of jquery (1.3+ I think), all you have to do is set one of the members of the radio set to be required and jquery will take care of the rest:

<input type="radio" name="myoptions" value="blue" class="required"> Blue<br />
<input type="radio" name="myoptions" value="red"> Red<br />
<input type="radio" name="myoptions" value="green"> Green

The above would require at least 1 of the 3 radio options w/ the name of "my options" to be selected before proceeding.

The label suggestion by Mahes, btw, works wonderfully!

use the following rule for validating radio button group selection

myRadioGroupName : {required :true}

myRadioGroupName is the value you have given to name attribute

You can also use this:

<fieldset>
<input type="radio" name="myoptions[]" value="blue"> Blue<br />
<input type="radio" name="myoptions[]" value="red"> Red<br />
<input type="radio" name="myoptions[]" value="green"> Green<br />
<label for="myoptions[]" class="error" style="display:none;">Please choose one.</label>
</fieldset>

and simply add this rule

rules: {
 'myoptions[]':{ required:true }
}

Mention how to add rules.

As per Brandon's answer. But if you're using ASP.NET MVC which uses unobtrusive validation, you can add the data-val attribute to the first one. I also like to have labels for each radio button for usability.

<span class="field-validation-valid" data-valmsg-for="color" data-valmsg-replace="true"></span>
<p><input type="radio" name="color" id="red" value="R" data-val="true" data-val-required="Please choose one of these options:"/> <label for="red">Red</label></p>
<p><input type="radio" name="color" id="green" value="G"/> <label for="green">Green</label></p>
<p><input type="radio" name="color" id="blue" value="B"/> <label for="blue">Blue</label></p>

Another way to validate is like this.

var $radio = $('input:radio[name="nameRadioButton"]');
$radio.addClass("validate[required]");

I hope my example will help you

I had the same problem. Wound up just writing a custom highlight and unhighlight function for the validator. Adding this to the validaton options should add the error class to the element and its respective label:

		'highlight': function (element, errorClass, validClass) {
			if($(element).attr('type') == 'radio'){
				$(element.form).find("input[type=radio]").each(function(which){
					$(element.form).find("label[for=" + this.id + "]").addClass(errorClass);
					$(this).addClass(errorClass);
				});
			} else {
				$(element.form).find("label[for=" + element.id + "]").addClass(errorClass);
				$(element).addClass(errorClass);
			}
		},
		'unhighlight': function (element, errorClass, validClass) {
			if($(element).attr('type') == 'radio'){
				$(element.form).find("input[type=radio]").each(function(which){
					$(element.form).find("label[for=" + this.id + "]").removeClass(errorClass);
					$(this).removeClass(errorClass);
				});
			}else {
				$(element.form).find("label[for=" + element.id + "]").removeClass(errorClass);
				$(element).removeClass(errorClass);
			}
		},

code for radio button -

<div>
<span class="radio inline" style="margin-right: 10px;">@Html.RadioButton("Gender", "Female",false) Female</span>
<span class="radio inline" style="margin-right: 10px;">@Html.RadioButton("Gender", "Male",false) Male</span>                                                        
<div class='GenderValidation' style="color:#ee8929;"></div>    
</div> 

<input class="btn btn-primary" type="submit" value="Create" id="create"/>

and jQuery code-

<script>
    $(document).ready(function () {
        $('#create').click(function(){
            
            var gender=$('#Gender').val();
            if ($("#Gender:checked").length == 0){
                $('.GenderValidation').text("Gender is required.");
                return false;
            }
        });
    });
</script>

Puts the error message on top.

   <style> 

 .radio-group{ 
      position:relative; margin-top:40px; 
 } 

 #myoptions-error{ 
     position:absolute; 
     top: -25px; 
  } 

 </style> 

 <div class="radio-group"> 
 <input type="radio" name="myoptions" value="blue" class="required"> Blue<br /> 
 <input type="radio" name="myoptions" value="red"> Red<br /> 
 <input type="radio" name="myoptions" value="green"> Green </div>
 </div><!-- end radio-group -->