Assistance with a custom jquery validate error message function - jquery-validate

Question

We have a rule that all of our validation messages must be in a summary, and thus the default "this field is required" doesn't cut it because the messages lose their context in a summary and therefore need specific field indicators.
I have a solution that I like rather well, but it soon became clear that there was a need for messages outside of just the required field (email, url, custom methods like phoneUS, etc), so I made some additions to my function.
I've been using jQuery for a while, but I'm not an expert in the optimization area, so I wanted to get some expert help on whether the function below could be optimized...my question is, "is there actually a better way to handle custom error messages in a summary?"
$('.required, .email').each(function(index) {
var $this = $(this);
var label = (
$this.is(':radio')
? $("label[data-name='"+$this.attr('name')+"']")
: label = $("label[for='"+$this.attr('id')+"']")
);
var customMessages = [{}];
if($this.hasClass('required')){
customMessages.required = "'" + label.text() + "' is required.";
}
if($this.hasClass('email')){
customMessages.email = "'" + label.text() + "' has an invalid email address.";
}
$this.rules("add", {
messages: customMessages
});
});
Here is the jsFiddle:
http://jsfiddle.net/GD5nw/1/

Answer 1

So why not just assign the custom message on a field-by-field basis for each field as is most typically done? It seems less verbose than what you've been doing.
http://docs.jquery.com/Plugins/Validation/validate#toptions
Example for input elements with name attribute assigned as first, second, and address.
$('#myform').validate({
rules: {
first: {
required: true
},
second: {
required: true
},
address: {
required: true,
digits: true // just an example
}
},
messages: {
first: {
required: "your first name is required"
},
second: {
required: "your last name is required"
},
address: {
required: "your address is required",
digits: "must only use digits on address"
}
}
});
Working Demo: http://jsfiddle.net/x4YBw/