xVal (deprecated)

Reviewed: Version 1.0 (mar. 10, 2011)

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 09:21:07 GMT

Rated 5 Stars (out of 5) - this is far better than what microsoft has to offer, too bad it's deprecated

New Post: Does xVal handle embeded objects?

whoever — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 02:23:41 GMT

Never mind, looks like the party is over before I have a chance.

New Post: Does xVal handle embeded objects?

whoever — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 13:51:22 GMT

Like User has a list of Credit Cards and each card has a billing Address. And a valid user must have a name, at least one card and with valid zip code? Seems no examples mentions that?

Thanks.

Updated Wiki: Home

SteveSanderson — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 18:12:25 GMT

Important: xVal is recommended for use only with ASP.NET MVC 1.0

If you're using ASP.NET MVC 2.0 or later, the framework has built-in support for generating client-side validation logic directly from model metadata. You can still use xVal if you wish, but it won't be actively developed or supported.

Project Description

xVal is a validation framework for ASP.NET MVC applications. It makes it easy to link up your choice of server-side validation mechanism with your choice of client-side validation library, neatly fitting both into ASP.NET MVC architecture and conventions.

Features

Define your validation rules using attributes on model properties, e.g.,

[Required] [StringLength(50)] public string Name { get; set; }

(Or, if you prefer, you can supply rules programatically or you can just hard-code them in specific views)

Designed to fit into ASP.NET MVC conventions for handling form posts and storing and retrieving error information in ModelState
Use your choice of server-side validation framework. Out of the box, xVal lets you use .NET 3.5's built-in DataAnnotations classes or Castle Validator (or both). If you want to use something different, you can create your own provider just by implementing IRulesProvider.
Use your choice of client-side validation library. Out of the box, xVal lets you use jQuery Validation or ASP.NET's native client-side validation library (a.k.a. WebUIValidation.js, as used by WebForms). Or, use any other client-side validation library by writing a plug-in to configure it using xVal's standard JSON rules description format.
Supports localized error messages using resource files. Vary the language of your validation messages according to the current thread's culture.
Add custom validation logic that runs both on the server and on the client, either by subclassing an existing rule or by referencing a custom JavaScript function

How to use xVal

For more information, and to see a quick tutorial, see this blog post. Further enhancements are planned To Do.

New Post: does this work with VS2010 released?

minkbear — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 18:43:39 GMT

Try to check it out here.

http://code.google.com/p/productinfo/source/browse/trunk/src/ProductInfoMVC/Scripts/MicrosoftMvcJQueryValidation.js?spec=svn10&r=10

New Post: Does xVal need data annotations on the model?

EvilRabbit — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 08:11:08 GMT

Does xVal only work with data annotations? Is is possible to keep my domain entities clean of validation annotations? I see the following:

"you can also write your own IRulesProvider to attach rules programmatically or using any other .NET validation framework.: but have not seen any implemtation of this.

I have been working with FluentValidation which allows you to abstract the validation like:

public class Person

{
     public string Name {get;set;}
}

public class PersonValidator: AbstractValidator<Person>
    {
        public PersonValidator()
        {
            RuleFor(x => x.Name).NotEmpty().Length(2);
        }
}

ValidationResult result = Person.Validate(new PersonValidator());

I want to try and keep my domain model free from a lot of annotations. Is something similar possible with xVal?

Cheers

New Post: does this work with VS2010 released?

n8nt — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 15:35:41 GMT

I've seen a lot of references to xVal and ClientSideValidation in the various forums on the net. When I try to use the approach without xVal (i.e., use

<script src="../../Scripts/MicrosoftMvcJQueryValidation.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

I cannot find MicrosoftMvcJQueryValidation.js anywhere.

So then I searched more and found references to xVal

But the last discussion is back in 2009 so I'm wondering if this even applies to VS2010.

Thanks

New Post: xVal Custom Rules on empty form fields

patriciav — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 17:35:41 GMT

Thanks stile1201!

I wasted about 2 hours trying to figure out why it wasn't firing :(

Reviewed: Version 1.0 (sep. 02, 2010)

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 07:41:09 GMT

Rated 5 Stars (out of 5) - this is far better than what microsoft has to offer

Created Issue: Specific version of System.Web.Mvc set to true causes unit test failures [5381]

MikeAlonso — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:58:52 GMT

A bunch of my unit tests started failing when I added xVal to my MVC2 application. The unit test failures started when I added a using statement of "xVal.ServerSide" so that I could catch RulesExceptions. The error message was:

System.IO.FileLoadException: Could not load file or assembly 'System.Web.Mvc, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35' or one of its dependencies. The located assembly's manifest definition does not match the assembly reference. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80131040)

After poking around, I realized that I didn't have MVC1 installed and that the issue had to be with xVal. The ironic part was that it would not throw the error when debugging the web application, but it would fail in the unit tests. I recompiled the xVal project with specific version set to false on the System.Web.Mvc and all my problems disappeared.

New Post: Validation Messages displaying immediately before submit

mreyeros — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 02:38:40 GMT

I have a page that renders a partial view that contains my form. This partial has more than one form but only one of them has values that need validation. For some reason though whenever I get to this page immediately following a GET request, all of the validation messages are displayed. Has anyone run into this while using xVal in their projects?

Regards, and thanks in advance

Michael Reyeros

Source code checked in, #49966

_TFSSERVICE — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 20:19:27 GMT

Checked in by server upgrade

New Post: StringLength validation minimum length not working on client side.

AndreiR — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 21:49:54 GMT

I have found / fixed the problem, as described in the following work item.

New Post: xVal and list inputs

i8beef — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 19:53:33 GMT

When you have something like this:

                        <% for (var i = 0; i < 10; i++ ) { %>
                        <tr>
                            <td>
                                <%= Html.LabelFor(m => m.DomainTraining[i].Hours) %>
                                <%= Html.CustomTextBoxFor(m => m.DomainTraining[i].Hours, new { style = "width:50px;" })%>
                                <%= Html.ValidationMessageFor(m => m.DomainTraining[i].Hours)%>
                            </td>
                            <td>
                                <%= Html.LabelFor(m => m.DomainTraining[i].Description) %>
                                <%= Html.CustomTextBoxFor(m => m.DomainTraining[i].Description) %>
                                <%= Html.ValidationMessageFor(m => m.DomainTraining[i].Description)%>
                            </td>
                            <td>
                                <%= Html.LabelFor(m => m.DomainTraining[i].CompleteDate) %>
                                <%= Html.CustomTextBoxFor(m => m.DomainTraining[i].CompleteDate, new { style = "width:150px;" })%>
                                <%= Html.ValidationMessageFor(m => m.DomainTraining[i].CompleteDate)%>
                                <%= Html.ClientSideValidation<DomainTraining>("DomainTraining[" + i + "]") %>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <% } %>

And you want to attach a client side validation thing to each one (As I tried to do above) it doesn't attach the validator correctly (MVC2). I don't know if this is because of a change in MVC2 or not, but the client side ID of these items would be DomainTraining_x__Hours, etc. xVal attempts to attach it to DomainTraining[x]_Hours, which while that makes sense, is incorrect. The fix would be one line 53 of the library:

            return fullyQualifiedModelName.replace(/[\.\[\]]/g, "_");

All I did was add the brackets to the RegEx to be replaced by the "_" character. Validators now attach correctly. If there was a reason for this, please advise.

/ Michael /

Patch Uploaded: #6054

wwb — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 14:38:15 GMT

wwb has uploaded a patch.

Description:
Patch to build against MVC2. Changes are:
* Updated System.Web.MVC references in xVal, xVal.ClientSidePlugins & xVal.Tests
* Updated xVal.Tests.TestHelpers.HtmlHelperMocks to fix a breaking change in the ViewContext constructor.

[Yes, I know that xVal is meant to be replaced by the MVC2 validators, but I didn't have time to rip out that but wanted some other MVC2 features]

Commented Issue: StringLength not enforced client side [4756]

andreir — Thu, 27 May 2010 19:42:59 GMT

Hi, I am having some hard time getting StringLength to be enforced client side. I guess some javascript is out of sync?

I am using Visual Studio 2010, ASP.NET MVC 2.0 (final), created a new MVC web application, created a new user model :

public class UserModel
{
[Required]
[RegularExpression(@"\w+([-+.']\w+)*@\w+([-.]\w+)*\.\w+([-.]\w+)*")]
public string EmailAddress { get; set; }

[Required]
[StringLength(200, MinimumLength = 6)]
public string Password { get; set; }
}

An action set :

[HttpGet]
public ViewResult Create()
{
return View();
}

[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Create(UserModel user)
{
if (!ModelState.IsValid)
{
return View();
}
else
{
return Redirect("http://www.bing.com");
}
}

Also created a view for this :

<asp:Content ContentPlaceHolderID="AdditionalHtmlHeaderContent" runat="server">
<script type="text/javascript" src="<%= ResolveUrl("~/Scripts/jquery-1.3.2.js")%>"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="<%= ResolveUrl("~/Scripts/jquery.validate.js")%>"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="<%= ResolveUrl("~/Scripts/xVal.jquery.validate.js")%>"></script>

<%= Html.ClientSideValidation<ConsoleApplication11.Models.UserModel>("user") %>

</asp:Content>

<asp:Content ID="Content2" ContentPlaceHolderID="MainContent" runat="server">

<h2>ViewPage1</h2>

<% using (Html.BeginForm()) {%>
<%: Html.ValidationSummary(true) %>

<fieldset>
<legend>Fields</legend>

<p>
Email address : <%: Html.TextBox("user.EmailAddress") %>
<%: Html.ValidationMessage("user.EmailAddress")%>
</p>
<p>
Password : <%: Html.Password("user.Password") %>
<%: Html.ValidationMessage("user.Password")%>
</p>

<p>
<input type="submit" value="Create" />
</p>
</fieldset>

<% } %>

<div>
<%: Html.ActionLink("Back to List", "Index") %>
</div>

</asp:Content>

Then I referenced the xVal assembly and added

<add namespace="xVal.Html"/>

in my master Web.config

Uppon running, in all browsers, all rules are enforced on the client side too, except the StringLength one..

Environment :

OS: Windows 7 Enterprise (final) - Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7600]

Browsers tested :
* Internet Explorer 8 (8.0.7600.16385) : Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/4.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; Media Center PC 6.0; InfoPath.2; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E; OfficeLiveConnector.1.5; OfficeLivePatch.1.3; Creative AutoUpdate v1.40.01)
* Opera 10.53 : Opera/9.80 (Windows NT 6.1; U; en) Presto/2.5.24 Version/10.53

.NET Framework Version : 4.0

jQuery versions used :
* 1.3.6
* 1.4.1

I am attaching the test project
Comments: ** Comment from web user: andreir **

I have found the problem.

The xVal assembly was compiled against the .NET 3.5 and the StringLengthAttribute class *DOES NOT* have a MinimumLength property at all. That's why in the DataAnnotationsRuleProvider.cs (xVal\RuleProviders\DataAnnotationsRuleProvider.cs) at line 25 it reads :

ruleEmitters.AddSingle<StringLengthAttribute>(x => new StringLengthRule(null, x.MaximumLength));

see the null? That's the minimum length parameter.
I've targeted the 4.0 .NET Framework, corrected the line, compiled and VOILA! it works..

It was not Steve's fault. At least not Sanderson ;)

Created Issue: StringLength not enforced client side [4756]

andreir — Thu, 27 May 2010 08:44:58 GMT

New Post: Multiple Row Validation on Field

bm3chaser — Wed, 26 May 2010 12:28:31 GMT

using FluentValidator is probably your best bet.

New Post: Validating two elements (e.g. Dropdown and Textbox)

bm3chaser — Wed, 26 May 2010 12:22:06 GMT

i would also like a solution to this problem, this has been the main issue with dataannotation for me and for anyone doing real world mvc stuff (and not just those pretty (easy) the world is non-complex and simple examples we get shown by the product evangelists).

currently i am using fluent validation which is able to do this, but am not entirely happy with it, so my decision to move to xval/castle would be contingent on being able to do something like this in an elegent manner, as FluentValidator allows me to (it is great on that end).

New Post: StringLength validation minimum length not working on client side.

AndreiR — Tue, 25 May 2010 22:49:36 GMT

Galawyn wrote:

I have same problem, DataAnnotation + xVal + JQuery

[StringLength(100, MinimumLength = 10)]

[Required]

public virtual String Test { get; set; }

I do have this problem but only on IE 8. On Opera 9, Firefox 3.6, Safari 4 and Chrome 4.

Btw, having the default example crashes IE 8 / Win 7 (64 bit), latest patches (OS + browser).

It's the BookingsDemo, you know it very well Steve. I just added a [StringLength(5)] on DomainModel.Entities.Booking's Name property.