Can I use my RegularExpression attribute instead of the DataAnnotations one?

Question

I'm trying to use a reusable regex class and use along with DataAnnotations in MVC. Something like:

[RegularExpressionAttribute1(typeof(MyRegex))] 

This compiles but no error is thrown if the property doesn't match.

It all works with the standard

[RegularExpression(@"^\s*\d+(\.\d{1,2})?\s*$")]

Answer 1

You can create a custom validation attribute to re-use regular expressions. For email validation you would do something like this:

using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;

public class EmailAttribute : RegularExpressionAttribute
{
    public EmailAttribute()
        : base(@"(?i)^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$") { }
}