Is it possible to have unobtrusive validation to make a field required but only if other properties change?
For Example
[Required]
public Decimal Income {get; set;}
[Required]
public Decimal Tax {get; set;}
//Required if tax or income changes
public string ChangeReason {get; set;}
I thought about having multiple backing store fields and writing a Custom Validator to compare these, but wondered if anyone had a better suggestion?
Custom Validator is the way to go. I had to build something similar a while back.
I'd set up a hidden value - "Changed" - set it to true whenever the user mods the fields of interest.
Set a RequiredIf validator on the 2 properties of interest:
[RequiredIf("Changed", true, ErrorMessage = "Required")]
The code for a RequiredIf validator is shown below:
public class RequiredIfAttribute : ValidationAttribute, IClientValidatable
{
private RequiredAttribute _innerAttribute = new RequiredAttribute();
public string DependentProperty { get; set; }
public object TargetValue { get; set; }
public RequiredIfAttribute(string dependentProperty, object targetValue)
{
this.DependentProperty = dependentProperty;
this.TargetValue = targetValue;
}
protected override ValidationResult IsValid(object value, ValidationContext validationContext)
{
// get a reference to the property this validation depends upon
var containerType = validationContext.ObjectInstance.GetType();
var field = containerType.GetProperty(this.DependentProperty);
if (field != null)
{
// get the value of the dependent property
var dependentvalue = field.GetValue(validationContext.ObjectInstance, null);
// compare the value against the target value
if ((dependentvalue == null && this.TargetValue == null) ||
(dependentvalue != null && dependentvalue.Equals(this.TargetValue)))
{
// match => means we should try validating this field
if (!_innerAttribute.IsValid(value))
// validation failed - return an error
return new ValidationResult(this.ErrorMessage, new[] { validationContext.MemberName });
}
}
return null;
}
public IEnumerable<ModelClientValidationRule> GetClientValidationRules(ModelMetadata metadata, ControllerContext context)
{
var rule = new ModelClientValidationRule()
{
ErrorMessage = FormatErrorMessage(metadata.GetDisplayName()),
ValidationType = "requiredif",
};
string depProp = BuildDependentPropertyId(metadata, context as ViewContext);
// find the value on the control we depend on;
// if it's a bool, format it javascript style
// (the default is True or False!)
string targetValue = (this.TargetValue ?? "").ToString();
if (this.TargetValue.GetType() == typeof(bool))
targetValue = targetValue.ToLower();
rule.ValidationParameters.Add("dependentproperty", depProp);
rule.ValidationParameters.Add("targetvalue", targetValue);
yield return rule;
}
private string BuildDependentPropertyId(ModelMetadata metadata, ViewContext viewContext)
{
// build the ID of the property
string depProp = viewContext.ViewData.TemplateInfo.GetFullHtmlFieldId(this.DependentProperty);
// unfortunately this will have the name of the current field appended to the beginning,
// because the TemplateInfo's context has had this fieldname appended to it. Instead, we
// want to get the context as though it was one level higher (i.e. outside the current property,
// which is the containing object (our Person), and hence the same level as the dependent property.
var thisField = metadata.PropertyName + "_";
if (depProp.StartsWith(thisField))
// strip it off again
depProp = depProp.Substring(thisField.Length);
return depProp;
}
}
Javascript:
/// <reference path="jquery-1.4.4-vsdoc.js" />
/// <reference path="jquery.validate.unobtrusive.js" />
$.validator.addMethod('requiredif',
function (value, element, parameters) {
var id = '#' + parameters['dependentproperty'];
// get the target value (as a string,
// as that's what actual value will be)
var targetvalue = parameters['targetvalue'];
targetvalue =
(targetvalue == null ? '' : targetvalue).toString();
// get the actual value of the target control
// note - this probably needs to cater for more
// control types, e.g. radios
var control = $(id);
var controltype = control.attr('type');
var actualvalue =
controltype === 'checkbox' ?
control.attr('checked').toString() :
control.val();
// if the condition is true, reuse the existing
// required field validator functionality
if (targetvalue === actualvalue)
return $.validator.methods.required.call(
this, value, element, parameters);
return true;
}
);
$.validator.unobtrusive.adapters.add(
'requiredif',
['dependentproperty', 'targetvalue'],
function (options) {
options.rules['requiredif'] = {
dependentproperty: options.params['dependentproperty'],
targetvalue: options.params['targetvalue']
};
options.messages['requiredif'] = options.message;
});
It is possible. You can write your own attribute, to do this exactly.
It basically requires two steps:
A good working sample is described in this post.
I used a similar approach to create a dependency validation (one field could have values only if another was filled)
