I've a model kind of complicated.
I have my UserViewModel
which has several properties and two of them are HomePhone
and WorkPhone
. Both of type PhoneViewModel
. In PhoneViewModel
I have CountryCode
, AreaCode
and Number
all strings. I want to make the CountryCode
optional but AreaCode
and Number
mandatory.
This works great. My problem is that in the UserViewModel
WorkPhone
is mandatory, and HomePhone
is not.
Is there anyway I can dissable Require
attributs in PhoneViewModel
by setting any attributes in HomeWork
property?
I've tried this:
[ValidateInput(false)]
but it is only for classes and methods.
Code:
public class UserViewModel
{
[Required]
public string Name { get; set; }
public PhoneViewModel HomePhone { get; set; }
[Required]
public PhoneViewModel WorkPhone { get; set; }
}
public class PhoneViewModel
{
public string CountryCode { get; set; }
public string AreaCode { get; set; }
[Required]
public string Number { get; set; }
}
[UPDATED on 5/24/2012 to make the idea more clear]
I'm not sure this is the right approach but I think you can extend the concept and can create a more generic / reusable approach.
In ASP.NET MVC the validation happens at the binding stage. When you are posting a form to the server the DefaultModelBinder
is the one that creates model instances from the request information and add the validation errors to the ModelStateDictionary
.
In your case, as long as the binding happens with the HomePhone
the validations will fire up and I think we can't do much about this by creating custom validation attributes or similar kind.
All I'm thinking is not to create model instance at all for HomePhone
property when there are no values available in the form (the areacode, countrycode and number or empty), when we control the binding we control the validation, for that, we have to create a custom model binder.
In the custom model binder we are checking if the property is HomePhone
and if the form contains any values for it's properties and if not we don't bind the property and the validations won't happen for HomePhone
. Simply, the value of HomePhone
will be null in the UserViewModel
.
public class CustomModelBinder : DefaultModelBinder
{
protected override void BindProperty(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext, PropertyDescriptor propertyDescriptor)
{
if (propertyDescriptor.Name == "HomePhone")
{
var form = controllerContext.HttpContext.Request.Form;
var countryCode = form["HomePhone.CountryCode"];
var areaCode = form["HomePhone.AreaCode"];
var number = form["HomePhone.Number"];
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(countryCode) && string.IsNullOrEmpty(areaCode) && string.IsNullOrEmpty(number))
return;
}
base.BindProperty(controllerContext, bindingContext, propertyDescriptor);
}
}
Finally you have to register the custom model binder in global.asax.cs.
ModelBinders.Binders.Add(typeof(UserViewModel), new CustomModelBinder());
So now of you have an action that takes UserViewModel as parameter,
[HttpPost]
public Action Post(UserViewModel userViewModel)
{
}
Our custom model binder come into play and of form doesn't post any values for the areacode, countrycode and number for HomePhone
, there won't be any validation errors and the userViewModel.HomePhone
is null. If the form posts atleast any one of the value for those properties then the validation will happen for HomePhone
as expected.