I currently have a form that I am building that needs to support two different versions. Each version might use a different subset of form fields. I have to do this to support two different clients, but I don't want to have entirely different controller actions for both.
So, I am trying to come up with a way to use a strongly typed model with validation attributes but have some of these attributes be conditional.
Some approaches I can think of is similar to steve sanderson's partial validation approach.
Where I would clear the model errors in a filter OnActionExecuting based on which version of the form was active.
The other approach I was thinking of would to break the model up into pieces using something like
class FormModel
{
public Form1 Form1Model {get; set;}
public Form2 FormModel {get; set;}
}
and then find some way to just validate the appropriate property depending on the version. There would also be common properties on the model that apply to both which would be always validated.
Does anyone have a good suggestion on this?
I've had reasonable success with using ModelBinders to remove errors I don't need from the ModelState.
Here's an example for an Address model binder. In the UI I have a <SELECT> for US States, but this is hidden when the country is not 'US' in favor of a <INPUT ID=StateOrProvince> textbox.
The modelbinder looks at the country and removes the unneeded values.
As far as doing this with validation attributes - I'd think you'd quickly get yourself in a big mess unless you have very simple rules.
Tip: You can have as many modelbinders as you want to discreet pieces of your overall model. For instance - I have 2 Address objects in my model and they each automatically get this behavior applied.
Register:
ModelBinders.Binders[typeof(UI.Address)] = new AddressModelBinder();
ModelBinder:
public class AddressModelBinder : DefaultModelBinder
{
protected override void OnModelUpdated(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext)
{
base.OnModelUpdated(controllerContext, bindingContext);
// get the address to validate
var address = (Address)bindingContext.Model;
// remove statecd for non-us
if (address.IsUSA)
{
address.StateOrProvince = string.IsNullOrEmpty(address.StateCd) ? null : CountryCache.GetStateName(address.StateCd);
bindingContext.ModelState.Remove(bindingContext.ModelName + ".StateOrProvince");
}
else
{
address.StateCd = null;
bindingContext.ModelState.Remove(bindingContext.ModelName + ".StateCd");
}
// validate US zipcode
if (address.CountryCode == "US")
{
if (new Regex(#"^\d{5}([\-]\d{4})?$", RegexOptions.Compiled).Match(address.ZipOrPostal ?? "").Success == false)
{
bindingContext.ModelState.AddModelError(bindingContext.ModelName + ".ZipOrPostal", "The value " + address.ZipOrPostal + " is not a valid zipcode");
}
}
// all other modelbinding attributes such as [Required] will be processed as normal
}
}
Related
Maybe that's not exactly the solution i need, but this is what i want to do:
i have a company registration form, and each company needs an administrative user. an administrative user may manage multiple companies, so in the company registration form, you can choose an existing user from a dropdown.
the company view model looks something like this:
public class CompanyViewModel {
[Required]
public string Name { get; set; }
// other properties...
public UserViewModel Administrator { get; set; }
public IEnumerable<UserViewModel> AvailableUsers { get; set; }
}
and the user view model looks like this:
public class UserViewModel {
[Required]
public string UserName { get; set; }
[Required]
public string Password { get; set; }
// other properties...
}
in the company registration view:
<div><input type="radiobutton" name="chooseuser" id="existing"/>Choose an Existing User:</div.
<div>#Html.DropDownListFor(m => m.Administrator.Id, Model.AvailableUsers.Select(u => new SelectListItem { Text = string.Format("{0} - {1} {2}", u.UserName, u.FirstName, u.LastName), Value = u.Id.ToString() }), "<Choose existing user>", new { id = "existingusers" })
</div>
<div><input type="radiobutton" name="chooseuser" id="createnew"/>Create a new User:</div>
<div><label>Username:</label> #Html.EditorFor(m => m.Administrator.UserName)</div>
Through javascript, based on radio button selection, the dropdown list is disabled and the new user form shown, or the new user form is hidden and the dropdown list is enabled.
The problem is in the controller Save action after you press save, ModelState.IsValid is false if an existing user is chosen and no data is filled in on the form. If the user chooses to enter a new user, validation succeeds.
What is the best way to handle this?
One option is to load all data for all users into data structures in javascript, and when the value changes on the existing user dropdown, the hidden "create new" form fields can be populated. But this seems lame since passwords would be sitting the html in plain text. i can get fancier and use ajax for a "create new" form and populate a user id on the original form once the new user is saved, but i'd like to keep it all in one form if possible.
Seems liked i'd ideally be able to load the existing user data from the db and populate the model state in the controller Save action, but writing this code manually (even using reflection) seems sloppy. It would be nice if there was a built in method to do this.
Any ideas?
Thanks.
That's a typical scenario which perfectly illustrates the limitations of declarative validation (a.k.a Data Annotations). In order to handle it you could write a custom validation attribute which will be applied to the CompanyViewModel instead of individual properties and will allow you to perform the validation logic based on which radio button the user choose (btw you will need a property on your view model which will represent the radio button selection). The problem with model validators is that you might have some hard time handling the error highlighting.
That's one of the reasons why I use FluentValidation.NET instead of Data Annotations. This allows me to have the validation logic away from the model and done in an imperative way. It also allows me to have conditional validators which apply based on the values of some properties on the view model (in this case this would be the radio button selection).
You may want to consider a custom Modelbinder.
Here's some sample code from my site - this is part of a checkout page for a shopping cart - the user can enter an address but for US StateCd is sent and for non US StateOrProvince is sent. So we look at the country and remove any model errors for the other property that doesn't apply.
I think this is very similar to what you're describing (that you have two scenarios that need different rules but you want to use the same model).
The important code here is bindingContext.ModelState.Remove(...)which removes the model state and allows IsValid to return true.
public class AddressModelBinder : DefaultModelBinder
{
protected override void OnModelUpdated(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext)
{
base.OnModelUpdated(controllerContext, bindingContext);
// get the address to validate
var address = (Address)bindingContext.Model;
// remove statecd for non-us
if (address.IsUSA)
{
address.StateOrProvince = string.IsNullOrEmpty(address.StateCd) ? null : CountryCache.GetStateName(address.StateCd);
bindingContext.ModelState.Remove(bindingContext.ModelName + ".StateOrProvince");
}
else
{
address.StateCd = null;
bindingContext.ModelState.Remove(bindingContext.ModelName + ".StateCd");
}
// update country
address.Country = CountryCache.GetCountry(address.CountryCode, true).Name;
// validate US zipcode
if (address.CountryCode == "US")
{
if (new Regex(#"^\d{5}([\-]\d{4})?$", RegexOptions.Compiled).Match(address.ZipOrPostal ?? "").Success == false)
{
bindingContext.ModelState.AddModelError(bindingContext.ModelName + ".ZipOrPostal", "The value " + address.ZipOrPostal + " is not a valid zipcode");
}
}
// all other modelbinding attributes such as [Required] will be processed as normal
}
}
Note: You need to register this modelbinder in global.asax. The modelbinding component is smart enough to let you create differnt model binders for any part of your model if it contains different objects.
ModelBinders.Binders[typeof(UI.Address)] = new AddressModelBinder();
Hope this helps. I think this applies to your situation.
I've got a simple address entry app that I'm trying to use the IDataErrorInfo interface as explained on the asp.net site.
It works great for items that can be validated independently, but not so well when some items depend on others. For example, validating the postal code depends on the country:
private string _PostalCode;
public string PostalCode
{
get
{
return _PostalCode;
}
set
{
switch (_Country)
{
case Countries.USA:
if (!Regex.IsMatch(value, #"^[0-9]{5}$"))
_errors.Add("PostalCode", "Invalid Zip Code");
break;
case Countries.Canada:
if (!Regex.IsMatch(value, #"^([a-z][0-9][a-z]) ?([0-9][a-z][0-9])$", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase))
_errors.Add("PostalCode", "Invalid postal Code");
break;
default:
throw new ArgumentException("Unknown Country");
}
_PostalCode = value;
}
}
So you can only validate the postal code after the country has been set, but there seems to be no way of controlling that order.
I could use the Error string from IDataErrorInfo, but that doesn't show up in the Html.ValidationMessage next to the field.
For more complex business rule validation, rather than type validation it is maybe better to implement design patterns such as a service layer. You can check the ModelState and add errors based on your logic.
You can view Rob Conroys example of patterns here
http://www.asp.net/learn/mvc/tutorial-29-cs.aspx
This article on Data Annotations ay also be useful.
http://www.asp.net/learn/mvc/tutorial-39-cs.aspx
Hope this helps.
Here's the best solution I've found for more complex validation beyond the simple data annotations model.
I'm sure I'm not alone in trying to implement IDataErrorInfo and seeing that it has only created for me two methods to implement. I'm thinking wait a minute - do i have to go in there and write my own custom routines for everything now from scratch? And also - what if I have model level things to validate. It seems like you're on your own when you decide to use it unless you want to do something like this or this from within your IDataErrorInfo implementation.
I happened to have the exact same problem as the questioner. I wanted to validate US Zip but only if country was selected as US. Obviously a model-level data annotation wouldn't be any good because that wouldn't cause zipcode to be highlighted in red as an error. [good example of a class level data annotation can be found in the MVC 2 sample project in the PropertiesMustMatchAttribute class].
The solution is quite simple :
First you need to register a modelbinder in global.asax. You can do this as an class level [attribute] if you want but I find registering in global.asax to be more flexible.
private void RegisterModelBinders()
{
ModelBinders.Binders[typeof(UI.Address)] = new AddressModelBinder();
}
Then create the modelbinder class, and write your complex validation. You have full access to all properties on the object. This will run after any data annotations have run so you can always clear model state if you want to reverse the default behavior of any validation attributes.
public class AddressModelBinder : DefaultModelBinder
{
protected override void OnModelUpdated(ControllerContext controllerContext,
ModelBindingContext bindingContext)
{
base.OnModelUpdated(controllerContext, bindingContext);
// get the address to validate
var address = (Address)bindingContext.Model;
// validate US zipcode
if (address.CountryCode == "US")
{
if (new Regex(#"^\d{5}([\-]\d{4})?$", RegexOptions.Compiled).
Match(address.ZipOrPostal ?? "").Success == false)
{
// not a valid zipcode so highlight the zipcode field
var ms = bindingContext.ModelState;
ms.AddModelError(bindingContext.ModelName + ".ZipOrPostal",
"The value " + address.ZipOrPostal + " is not a valid zipcode");
}
}
else {
// we don't care about the rest of the world right now
// so just rely on a [Required] attribute on ZipOrPostal
}
// all other modelbinding attributes such as [Required]
// will be processed as normal
}
}
The beauty of this is that all your existing validation attributes will still work - [Required], [EmailValidator], [MyCustomValidator] - whatever you have.
You can just add in any extra code into the model binder and set field, or model level ModelState errors as you wish.
Please note that for me an Address is a child of the main model - in this case CheckoutModel which looks like this :
public class CheckoutModel
{
// uses AddressModelBinder
public Address BillingAddress { get; set; }
public Address ShippingAddress { get; set; }
// etc.
}
That's why I have to do bindingContext.ModelName+ ".ZipOrPostal" so that the model error will be set for 'BillingAddress.ZipOrPostal' and 'ShippingAddress.ZipOrPostal'.
PS. Any comments from 'unit testing types' appreciated. I'm not sure about the impact of this for unit testing.
Regarding the comment on Error string, IDataErrorInfo and the Html.ValidationMessage, you can display object level vs. field level error messages using:
Html.ValidationMessage("address", "Error")
Html.ValidationMessage("address.PostalCode", "Error")
In your controller decorate the post method handler parameter for the object with [Bind(Prefix = "address")]. In the HTML, name the input fields as such...
<input id="address_PostalCode" name="address.PostalCode" ... />
I don't generally use the Html helpers. Note the naming convention between id and name.
Suppose I want to allow to select our entity (from a dropdown, etc) on a page, let's say Product. As a result I may receive this:
public ActionResult SelectedAction(Guid productId)
{
}
But, I want to use model binders power, so instead I write model binder to get my product from repository and instead use
public ActionResult SelectedAction(Product product)
{
if (ModelState.IsValid) {} else {}
}
My model binder will set model state to false if product is invalid.
Now, there're problems with this approach:
It's not always easy to use strongly-typed methods like Html.ActionLink(c => c.SelectedAction(id)) since we need to pass Product, not id.
It's not good to use entities as controller parameters, anyway.
If model state is invalid, and I want to redirect back and show error, I can't preserve selected product! Because bound product is not set and my id is not there. I'd like to do RedirectToAction(c => c.Redisplay(product)) but of course this is not possible.
Now, seems like I'm back to use "Guid productId" as parameter... However, there's one solution that I'd like to present and discuss.
public class EntityViewModel<T> where T : BaseEntity
{
public EntityViewModel(Guid id)
{
this.Id = id;
}
public static implicit operator EntityViewModel<T>(T entity)
{
return new EntityViewModel<T>(entity.Id);
}
public override string ToString()
{
return Id.ToString();
}
public Guid Id { get; set; }
public T Instance { get; set; }
}
Now, if I use
public ActionResult SelectedAction(EntityViewModel<Product> product)
{
if (ModelState.IsValid) {} else {}
}
all the problems are solved:
I can pass EntityViewModel with only Id set if I have only Id.
I don't use entity as parameter. Moreover, I
can use EntityViewModel as property inside another ViewModel.
I can pass EntityViewModel back to RedirectToController and it will keep its Id value, which will be
redisplayed to user along with the validation messages (thanks to MVCContrib and ModelStateToTempData / PassParametersDuringRedirect).
The model binder will get Instance from the repository and will set model state errors like "Not found in database" and so on. And I can use things like ActionLink(c => c.Action(Model.MyProductViewModelProperty)).
The question is, are there any drawbacks here? I can't see anything bad but I'm still new to MVC and may miss some important things. Maybe there're better and approved ways? Maybe this is why everybody uses entity IDs as input parameters and properties?
Overall that looks like a good appoach to me...
As an alternative, you could use POCO for your viewmodel then I think all 3 problems would be solved automatically. Have you seen the Automapper project that allows an Entity to DTO approach? This would give you more flexibility by separating you ViewModel from your EntityModel, but really depends on the complexity of you application you are building.
MVC's ViewDataExtensions might also be useful instead of creating custom containers to hold various viewmodel objects as you mention in number 2.
MVCContrib's ModelStateToTempData should work for any serializable object (must be serializable for any out of process sessionstate providers eg. SQL, Velocity etc.), so you could use that even without wrapping your entity classes couldn't you?
I have certain panels on my page that are hidden under certain circumstances.
For instance I might have a 'billing address' and 'shipping address' and I dont want to validate 'shipping address' if a 'ShippingSameAsBilling' checkbox is checked.
I am trying to use the new DataAnnotations capabilities of ASP.NET MVC 2 (preview 1) to achieve this.
I need to prevent validation of the 'shipping address' when it is not displayed and need to find the way way to achieve this. I am talking mainly server side as opposed to by using jquery.
How can I achieve this? I have had several ideas, related to custom model binding but my current best solution is below. Any feedback on this method?
For the CheckoutModel I am using this approach (most fields hidden):
[ModelBinder(typeof(CheckoutModelBinder))]
public class CheckoutModel : ShoppingCartModel
{
public Address BillingAddress { get; set; }
public Address ShippingAddress { get; set; }
public bool ShipToBillingAddress { get; set; }
}
public class Address
{
[Required(ErrorMessage = "Email is required")]
public string Email { get; set; }
[Required(ErrorMessage = "First name is required")]
public string FirstName { get; set; }
[Required()]
public string LastName { get; set; }
[Required()]
public string Address1 { get; set; }
}
The custom model binder removes all ModelState errors for fields beginning with 'ShippingAddress' if it finds any. Then 'TryUpdateModel()' will return true.
public class CheckoutModelBinder : DefaultModelBinder
{
protected override void OnModelUpdated(ControllerContext controllerContext,
ModelBindingContext bindingContext) {
base.OnModelUpdated(controllerContext, bindingContext);
var model = (CheckoutModel)bindingContext.Model;
// if user specified Shipping and Billing are the same then
// remove all ModelState errors for ShippingAddress
if (model.ShipToBillingAddress)
{
var keys = bindingContext.ModelState.Where(x => x.Key.StartsWith("ShippingAddress")).Select(x => x.Key).ToList();
foreach (var key in keys)
{
bindingContext.ModelState.Remove(key);
}
}
}
}
Any better solutions?
http://bradwilson.typepad.com/blog/2009/04/dataannotations-and-aspnet-mvc.html
I can see your predicament. I'm looking for other validation solutions also with regard to complex validation rules that might apply to more than one property on a given model object or even many properties from different model objects in a object graph (if your unlucky enough to be validating linked objects like this).
The limitation of the IDataErrorInfo interface is that a model object satisfies the valid state simply when none of the properties have errors. This is to say that a valid object is one where all of it's properties are also valid. However, i may have a situation where if property A, B and C are valid - then the whole object is valid.. but also if property A is not valid but B and C are, then the object satisfies validity. I simply have no way of describing this condition/rule with the IDataErrorInfo interface / DataAnnotations attributes.
So i found this delegate approach. Now many of the helpful advancements in MVC didn't exist at the time of writing this article but the core concept should help you. Rather than using attributes to define the validation conditions of an object we create delegate functions that validate more complex requirements and because they're delegated we can re-use them. Sure it's more work, but the use of delegates means that we should be able to write validation rule code once and store all the validation rules in the one place (maybe service layer) and (the kool bit) even use the MVC 2 DefaultModelBinder to invoke the validation automatically (without heaps of checking in our controller actions - like Scott's blog says we can do with DataAnnotations. Refer to the last paragraph before the 'Strongly Typed UI Helpers' heading)!
I'm sure you can beef the approach suggested in the above article up a little with anonymous delegates like Func<T> or Predicate<T> and writing custom code blocks for the validation rules will enable cross-property conditions (for example the condition you referred to where if your ShippingSameAsBilling property is true then you can ignore more rules for the shipping address, etc).
DataAnnotations serves to make simple validation rules on objects really easy with very little code. But as your requirements develop you will need to validate on more complex rules. The new virtual methods in the MVC2 model binder should continue to provide us with ways of integrating our future validation inventions into the MVC framework.
Make sure the fields you don't want validated are not posted to the action. We only validate the fields that were actually posted.
Edit: (by questioner)
This behavior has changed in MVC2 RC2 :
Default validation system validates
entire model The default validation
system in ASP.NET MVC 1.0 and in
previews of ASP.NET MVC 2 prior to RC
2 validated only model properties that
were posted to the server. In ASP.NET
MVC 2, the new behavior is that all
model properties are validated when
the model is validated, regardless of
whether a new value was posted.
Applications that depend on the
ASP.NET MVC 1.0 behavior may require
changes. For more information about
this change, see the entry Input
Validation vs. Model Validation in
ASP.NET MVC on Brad Wilson’s blog.
For the more complex cases I moved away from simple DataAnnotations to the following: Validation with visitors and extension methods.
If you want to make use of your DataAnnotations you would replace something like the following:
public IEnumerable<ErrorInfo> BrokenRules (Payment payment)
{
// snip...
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty (payment.CCName))
{
yield return new ErrorInfo ("CCName", "Credit card name is required");
}
}
with a method to validate a property by name via DataAnnotations (which I don't have atm).
I created a partial model binder that only validates the keys that were submitted. For security reasons (if I was going to take this a step farther) I'd create a data annotation attribute that marks which fields are allowed to be excluded from a model. Then, OnModelUpdated check field attributes to ensure there is no undesired underposting going on.
public class PartialModelBinder : DefaultModelBinder
{
protected override void OnModelUpdated(ControllerContext controllerContext,
ModelBindingContext bindingContext)
{
// default model binding to get errors
base.OnModelUpdated(controllerContext, bindingContext);
// remove errors from filds not posted
// TODO: include request files
var postedKeys = controllerContext.HttpContext.Request.Form.AllKeys;
var unpostedKeysWithErrors = bindingContext.ModelState
.Where(i => !postedKeys.Contains(i.Key))
.Select(i=> i.Key).ToList();
foreach (var key in unpostedKeysWithErrors)
{
bindingContext.ModelState.Remove(key);
}
}
}
This isn't related to DataAnnotations but have you looked at the Fluent Validation project? It gives you fine grain control over your validation and if you have object-to-object validation an aggregate object of the two objects will get you going.
Also it seems to have been build with MVC in mind but it also has its own "runtime" so that you can use it in other .NET applications as well which is another bonus in my book.
Related: What’s the best way to implement field validation using ASP.NET MVC?
Let's suppose a solution with the following projects:
Foo; // the MVC web project
Foo.Models;
Foo.Repositories;
Foo.Services;
Foo.Models is the domain of the application with all the entities, doesn't matter if using EF, NH, POCO or whatever. Here's an example:
public class User
{
public string Username { get; set; }
public string Email { get; set; }
public string Password { get; set; }
}
In Foo.Repositories there is a UserRepository and in Foo.Services there is a UserService.
In the web application let's consider a model binder like following:
public class UserBinder : DefaultModelBinder
{
//...
}
I see three different options on where to put the validation:
In Foo.Models like the following:
public class User
{
public string Username { get; set; }
public string Email { get; set; }
public string Password { get; set; }
public ICollection<KeyValuePair<string, string>> ValidateErrors()
{
//Validate if Username, Email and Password has been passed
}
}
In Foo.Services like:
public class UserService
{
public ICollection<KeyValuePair<string, string>> ValidateErrors()
{
//Validate if Username, Email and Password has been passed
}
}
In Foo inside the model binder:
public class UserBinder : DefaultModelBinder
{
protected override void OnModelUpdated(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext)
{
var user = (User)bindingContext.Model;
// validate everything here
base.OnModelUpdated(controllerContext, bindingContext);
}
}
Another thing to notice is that considering the first 2 options [Model and Service] there is another decision to make: ValidateErrors method can be called directly on the controller or inside the Binder.
I have 2 questions on the scenario:
Should the validation be:
In the Model being called from the controller?
In the Model being called from the binder?
In the Service being called from the controller?
In the Service being called from the binder?
Directly in the Binder?
Any other idea?
All the above scenario discuss about the User creation. But what about User logon?
Let's say user uses the username and password to login in the application, so it won't need to validate the e-mail.
Where this validation should be?
In the Model being called from the controller?
In the Service being called from the controller?
Any other idea?
Check out the ASP.NET MVC Contact Manager Sample Application it has a very good architecture im my opinion
http://www.asp.net/learn/mvc/tutorial-26-cs.aspx'>http://www.asp.net/learn/mvc/tutorial-26-cs.aspx
I'm a big fan of putting calling the validation from the controllers and having the validation routine return an ActionResult so the controller can know what to do with the result.
For what it's worth, here's what I have scrounged up in my current project:
I have Models, Repositories (you can call them Services if you like), and ViewModels. I try to avoid writing custom model binders because (a) it's boring and (b) a strange place to put validation, IMHO. To me, a model binder is just taking items from the request and shoving them into an object. PHP, for example, doesn't do any validation when plucking items from a header into the $_POST array; it's the thing we plug the array into that cares about its contents.
My Model objects generally never allow themselves to enter an invalid state. This means that required parameters are passed in during constructors and properties will throw exceptions if they're attempted to be set with invalid values. And, in general, I try to design my Model objects to be immutable. For example, I have an Address object for mailing addresses that is constructed with an AddressBuilder object with looks at the field requirements for a given country by inspecting an AddressScheme that can be retrieved from the AddressSchemeRepository. Phew. But I think it's a good example because it takes something conceptually simple ("validate a mailing address") and makes it complicated in real world usage ("we accept addresses from over 30 countries, and those formatting rules are sitting in a database, not in my code").
Since constructing this Model object is kind of a pain--as well it should be, since it's being quite particular about the data that gets loaded into it--I have a, say, InputAddressViewModel object that my view binds to. The InputAddressViewModel implements IDataErrorInfo so that I get ASP.NET MVC's DefaultModelBinder to add errors to the ModelState automatically. For simple validation routines that I know ahead of time (phone number formatting, first name required, e-mail address format), I can implement these right in the InputAddressViewModel.
The other advantage of having a view model is that because it is shamelessly tailored to a particular view, your real model is more reusable because it doesn't have to make any weird concessions to make it suitable for UI display (e.g., needs to implement INotifyPropertyChanged or Serializable or any of that mess).
Other validation errors about the address I won't know about until I interact with my AddressScheme in my actual Model. Those errors will be there controller's job of orchestrating into the ModelState. Something like:
public ActionResult InputAddress(InputAddressViewModel model)
{
if (ModelState.IsValid)
{
// "Front-line" validation passed; let's execute the save operation
// in the our view model
var result = model.Execute();
// The view model returns a status code to help the
// controller decide where to redirect the user next
switch (result.Status)
{
case InputAddressViewModelExecuteResult.Saved:
return RedirectToAction("my-work-is-done-here");
case InputAddressViewModelExecuteResult.UserCorrectableError:
// Something went wrong after we interacted with the
// datastore, like a bogus Canadian postal code or
// something. Our view model will have updated the
// Error property, but we need to call TryUpdateModel()
// to get these new errors to get added to
// the ModelState, since they were just added and the
// model binder ran before this method even got called.
TryUpdateModel(model);
break;
}
// Redisplay the input form to the user, using that nifty
// Html.ValidationMessage to convey model state errors
return View(model);
}
}
The switch may seem repulsive, but I think it makes sense: the view model is just a plain old class and doesn't have any knowledge of the Request or the HttpContext. This makes the logic of the view model easy to test in isolation without resorting to mocking and leaves the controller code left to, well, control by interpreting the model's result in a manner that makes sense on a Web site--it could redirect, it could set cookies, etc.
And the InputAddressViewModel's Execute() methods looks something like (some people would insist on putting this code into a Service object that the controller would call, but to me the view model will do so much finagling of the data to make it fit the real model that it makes sense to put it here):
public InputAddressViewModelExecuteResult Execute()
{
InputAddressViewModelExecuteResult result;
if (this.errors.Count > 0)
{
throw new InvalidOperationException(
"Don't call me when I have errors");
}
// This is just my abstraction for clearly demarcating when
// I have an open connection to a highly contentious resource,
// like a database connection or a network share
using (ConnectionScope cs = new ConnectionScope())
{
var scheme = new AddressSchemeRepository().Load(this.Country);
var builder = new AddressBuilder(scheme)
.WithCityAs(this.City)
.WithStateOrProvinceAs(this.StateOrProvince);
if (!builder.CanBuild())
{
this.errors.Add("Blah", builder.Error);
result = new InputAddressViewModelExecuteResult()
{
Status = InputAddressViewModelExecuteStatus
.UserCorrectableError
};
}
else
{
var address = builder.Build();
// save the address or something...
result = new InputAddressViewModelExecuteResult()
{
Status = InputAddressViewModelExecuteStatus.Success,
Address = address
};
}
}
return result;
}
Does this make sense? Is it a best practice? I have no idea; it's certainly verbose; it's what I just came up with in the past two weeks after thinking about this problem. I think you're going to have some duplication of validation--your UI can't be a complete imbecile and not know what fields are required or not before submitting them to your model/repositories/services/whatever--otherwise the form could simply generate itself.
I should add that the impetus for this is that I've always kind of detested the Microsoft mentality of "set one property -> validate one property" because nothing ever works like that in reality. And you always end up getting an invalid object persisted because someone forgot to call IsValid or some such on the way to the data store. So another reason for having a view model is that it tailors itself to this concession so we get a lot of CRUD work of pulling items from the request, validation errors in the model state, etc quite easily without having to compromise the integrity of our model itself. If I have an Address object in hand, I know it's good. If I have an InputAddressViewModel object in hand, I know I need to call it's Execute() method to get that golden Address object.
I'll look forward to reading some of the other answers.
After a lot of research I think I got the answers to my question so i decided to share.
The validation code should be on Model.
As per the idea of "thin controller, fat model" AND considering that a model would know what it needs to validate or not.
For example, let's say I decide to user the Foo.Models in other solution but I decide NOT to use any other project and the validation is in other project.
I'll have to re-code the entire validation in this case what is a total waste of time, right?
OK. The validation code must be in the model but where should it be called?
This validation must be called where you're saving it to your database or file.
As in the proposed scenario I'm considering the repository as a domain, then we should consider putting the validation just before the change saving [in this example I'm using Entity Framework but it's not necessary, it's just to show]:
public class UserRepository : IRepository<User>
{
public void Create(User user)
{
user.Validate();
var db = dbFooEntities();
db.AddToUsers(user);
db.SaveChanges();
}
}
As per MS recommendation, the model validation should raise an exception and the controller must populate the ModelState with the errors found [I'll try to update this answer with a sample code on that as soon as I finish my app].
With that we have an answer for question #1.
What about question #2, regarding the login validation?
As login is not a situation where you're persisting your data, the validation should stay on the Service since logging in is a service in this case.
So, the answers for the question are:
In the Model being called from the REPOSITORY [that is called by the controller]
In the Service being called from the controller
This is very interesting and it helps me a lot in deciding where to put validation.
currently I feel the most for each model implementing a "Validate" method, which is called from a Repository or a Service.
However, what about validating if a chosen username is unique?
Should that code be inside the User model, or inside the UserService class, or in the UserRepository class?
If the uniqueness validation should be inside the User model, then the User model should have access to either the UserService or the UserRepository class. Is that OK, or is that against any "best practice" pattern?
For example:
class User
{
string Username { get; set; }
string Email { get; set; }
string Password { get; set; } // hashed and salted of course :)
IEnumerable<RuleViolation> Validate()
{
List<RuleViolation> violations = new List<RuleViolation>();
IUserService service = MyApplicationService.UserService; // MyApplicationService is a singleton class, especialy designed so that the User model can access application services
// Username is required
if ( string.IsNullOrEmpty(Username) )
violations.Add(new RuleViolation("Username", "Username is required"));
// Username must be unique: Should uniqueness be validated here?
else if( !service.IsUsernameAvailable(Username)
violations.Add(new RuleViolation("Username", "Username is already taken!"));
// Validate email etc...
return violations;
}
}
interface IUserRepository
{
void Save(User item);
}
interface IUserService
{
IUserRepository UserRepository { get; }
void Save(User item);
}
class UserService : IUserService
{
public UserService(IUserRepository userRepository)
{
this.UserRepository = userRepository;
}
IUserRepository UserRepository { get; private set}
public void Save(User user)
{
IEnumerable<RuleViolation> violations = user.Validate();
if(violations.Count() > 0)
throw new RuleViolationException(violations); // this will be catched by the Controller, which will copy the violations to the ModelState errors collection. But the question is, should we validat the user here, or in the UserRepository class?
UserRepository.Save(user);
}
}
class UserRepository : IUserRepository
{
void Save(User item)
{
IEnumerable<RuleViolation> violations = user.Validate();
if(violations.Count() > 0)
throw new RuleViolationException(violations); // this will be catched by the Controller, which will copy the violations to the ModelState errors collection. But the question is, should we validate the user here, or in the UserService class?
UserRepository.Save(user);
}
}
My guess would be that validation should be as close to the model as possible. So I'd say that the UserRepository should be the one responsible for validating it's model being added.
The most important queston for me is: Should the User model know about the IUserService / IUserRepository interfaces so that it can validate the Username uniqueness?
Or should the IUserService service validate uniqueness?
I'm curious about your views on this!
I'm using the DataAnnotations attributes in combination with a MVC model binder to do my validation and its pretty awesome. Since I treat User input as Command View Models its the cleanest way to keep domain clean from outside concerns.
http://bradwilson.typepad.com/blog/2009/04/dataannotations-and-aspnet-mvc.html
This also allows me to take advantage of AutoForm by LosTechies.com:
http://www.lostechies.com/blogs/hex/archive/2009/06/17/opinionated-input-builders-part-8-the-auto-form.aspx
And I expect the client side validation tools in MVC 2, VS 2010 to take advantage of these attributes as well.
So I'm whipping out user input view models, commands, at a furious pace right now and tying them into not only the AutoForm functionality but my own custom UI templates to get AutoGrid and AutoOutput from these attributes as well.
Nothing is better than saying:
Html.AutoForm(Model);
Or
Html.AutoGrid(Model.Products);
And getting validation and html generation in a very DRY and orthogonal way. My controllers are light, my domain pristine, and my time is unoccupied by writing the same if( string.IsNullOrEmpty() ) method on every object with a FirstName property.
For me the approach was not as "philosophical" as others have written about. I'm trying to be very pragmatic about MVC development and I get a ton of bang for the buck out of these bits.