How do I remove the 'required' rules from all form inputs in jQuery Validate?

As can sometimes be the case, I appear to have stumbled on the answer just after resorting to posting on here.

for (var i in settings.rules){
   delete settings.rules[i].required;
}

Works.

And if you don't want to mess with validate's internal settings, you can use the public function in this way:

$('input, select, textarea').each(function() {
    $(this).rules('remove', 'required');
});

Note that leaving out the second parameter (required) would remove all the rules, not just the "required".

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