ASP.NET – Multiple ValidationSummary

asp.netvalidation

Scenario: I am trying to insert a team (composed by multiple persons) on a single page. I have a web user control to insert each person, and when a team has multiple persons several Web User Controls are displayed at the same time.

Each user has a ValidationSummary and several validators (All grouped to the same validation group, example person1 web user control has the validation group on de Validation summary and on each validator set to "valGroup_Person1").

The problem is when validation occurs all errors are grouped and displayed in all web user controls making each web user control display a very long error list. The expected was individual error lists.

Is there a way to get ValidationSummary to perform this way?

Best Answer

If you are using asp.net 2.0 then you must use validation group this will work.

See the below example it will work





        
        

    

<asp:RequiredFieldValidator ID="RequiredFieldValidator1" runat="server" 
    ControlToValidate="TextBox1" ErrorMessage="RequiredFieldValidator" 
    ValidationGroup="1">1</asp:RequiredFieldValidator>
<asp:RequiredFieldValidator ID="RequiredFieldValidator2" runat="server" 
    ControlToValidate="TextBox2" ErrorMessage="RequiredFieldValidator2" 
    ValidationGroup="2">2</asp:RequiredFieldValidator>
<asp:ValidationSummary ID="ValidationSummary1" runat="server" 
    ValidationGroup="1" />
<asp:ValidationSummary ID="ValidationSummary2" runat="server" 
    ValidationGroup="2" />
<asp:Button ID="Button1" runat="server" Text="Button" ValidationGroup="1" />
<asp:Button ID="Button2" runat="server" Text="Button" ValidationGroup="2" />

Website:

The Web Site project is compiled on the fly. You end up with a lot more DLL files, which can be a pain. It also gives problems when you have pages or controls in one directory that need to reference pages and controls in another directory since the other directory may not be compiled into the code yet. Another problem can be in publishing.

If Visual Studio isn't told to re-use the same names constantly, it will come up with new names for the DLL files generated by pages all the time. That can lead to having several close copies of DLL files containing the same class name, which will generate plenty of errors. The Web Site project was introduced with Visual Studio 2005, but it has turned out not to be popular.

Web Application:

The Web Application Project was created as an add-in and now exists as part of SP 1 for Visual Studio 2005. The main differences are the Web Application Project was designed to work similarly to the Web projects that shipped with Visual Studio 2003. It will compile the application into a single DLL file at build time. To update the project, it must be recompiled and the DLL file published for changes to occur.

Another nice feature of the Web Application project is it's much easier to exclude files from the project view. In the Web Site project, each file that you exclude is renamed with an excluded keyword in the filename. In the Web Application Project, the project just keeps track of which files to include/exclude from the project view without renaming them, making things much tidier.

Reference

The article ASP.NET 2.0 - Web Site vs Web Application project also gives reasons on why to use one and not the other. Here is an excerpt of it:

You need to migrate large Visual Studio .NET 2003 applications to VS 2005? use the Web Application project.

You want to open and edit any directory as a Web project without creating a project file? use Web Site project.

You need to add pre-build and post-build steps during compilation? use Web Application project.

You need to build a Web application using multiple Web projects? use the Web Application project.

You want to generate one assembly for each page? use the Web Site project.

You prefer dynamic compilation and working on pages without building entire site on each page view? use Web Site project.

You prefer single-page code model to code-behind model? use Web Site project.

Web Application Projects versus Web Site Projects (MSDN) explains the differences between the web site and web application projects. Also, it discusses the configuration to be made in Visual Studio.

C# – Triggering multiple validation groups with a single button

Call the Validate method for each validation group individually inside the button's click handler:

bool isValidTest = false;
Validate("AddressGroup");
isValidTest = IsValid;
Validate("CreditCardGroup");
isValidTest &= IsValid;
// etc.
if (!isValidTest) return;

The next problem you may encounter is that the ValidationSummary control is linked to a single validation group. The only way that I've found to display all the error messages for multiple groups (without walking the control tree) is use multiple ValidationSummary controls.

With user controls, you may want to have its Validate method perform validation for all the controls it contains and display its own summary.

Edited to add: The isValidTest variable is not needed. According to the docs:

Note that when you call the Validate method, the IsValid property reflects the validity of all groups validated so far.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

.net – ASP.NET Web Site or ASP.NET Web Application

Website:

Web Application:

C# – Triggering multiple validation groups with a single button

Related Topic