Jquery plugin problem. How do I return a value?

I wrote a simple jquery validation plugin for learning puposes, and it works fine. But I am new to this, and have no idea how to return a value from the plugin.

(function($){
    $.fn.bluevalidate = function(options){

        var defaults = {
            errorMsg : 'You have an error',
            required : false,
            no_space : false,
            no_special_chars : false,
            numbersOnly : false,
            max_chars : 0,
            min_chars : 0,
            matchWith : '',
            matchMsg : 'Please retype the same value',
            email : false
        };

        var opt = $.extend(defaults,options);

        r开发者_开发问答eturn this.each(function(index,element){
           var e = $(element);
           var p = e.parents('span:eq(0)');

           var msg = [];
           e.focus(function(){
                msg = [];
           });


           //-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
           //Handle required
           if(opt.required==true)
           {
                e.blur(function(evt){
                    if(e.val()=='')
                    {
                            e.css('background','#ffcccc');
                            msg.push('This field is required.');
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        e.css('background','#ffffff');
                    }
                    displayMsg();
                });
           }
....
....
..

basically I need to find out the number of errors on the form. So I thought I would write a function to trigger the blur() event on all fields and thus get the errors. But how do I return this value to a variable outside the plugin?

if possible, can someone give me a short example code to show how to return a value, and if there are any better alternatives to the situation?

Since each jQuery plugin should return a wrapped set of jQuery objects (to keep the chain alive), you can't (well, actually you could, but you shouldn't) return any value by using return;.

Since you correctly returning the jQuery wrapped set, you can invoke a callback function to deal with a value which you actually would return. Your options object is a perfect place for that:

$('element').bluevalidate({
    /* some flags */
    callback:   function(value) {
         // do something with value
    }
});

You can invoke that callback at any point within your plugin function. Let's assume you want to do something with your variable p, it would look like:

if( typeof options.callback === 'function' )
    options.callback.apply(this, [p]);

This would call your callback-function and passes the variable. The this is actually not necesarry but it's a nice bonus to have the current node as context aswell within your callback.