I'm building an ASP.NET MVC site where I want to decorate my ViewModels with validation attributes. One of the things I want to validate is that the address that a user submits through a form is geocodable. For that, I have already created a custom ValidationAttribute and have applied to my StreetAddress property.
This is all good, except that I am actually making two geocoding requests - one in my ViewModel for validation and another in my Controller to input the latitude and longitude into my database. I want to cut down on unnecessary network usage and delays, so I need to pass the result from the validation geocode into my controller.
To accomplish such a thing, I think I should create a Latitude and Longitude property in my ViewModel. The View itself won't touch these 2 properties, but the validation attribute will either report a failure in geocoding and return the View or write the results into the properties.
For a validation attribute to access 3 properties, it has to be applied to the whole class. I don't know how to do that yet, but that's what this question is for.
UPDATE: Thanks to this answer, I have figured out how to create a class-level validation attribute. The link in the answer also demonstrates how to read the contents of a property inside the class (via Reflection). I still haven't figured out how to write to a property, though.
My Questions
How do I create a ValidationAttribute that can be applied to a whole class? Below, I have posted the code that I want to transfrom into an attribute that can be applied to my ViewModel:
public class GeocodableAttribute : ValidationAttribute
{
public GeocodableAttribute() : base()
{
ErrorMessage = "We weren't able to find that location.";
}
public override bool IsValid(object value)
{
if (value == null) //we don't care if it's required or not.
{
return true;
}
var address = (string)value;
var response = Geocoder.CallGeoWS(address.Trim());
if(response.Status=="ZERO_RESULTS")
{
return false;
}
return true;
}
}
How do I have the attribute write to certain properties in the class that it is applied to? When I apply this attribute to my ViewModel, I want it to write successful geocoding results into two properties and return true. How can I implement that?
UPDATE #2: I think I just figured out how to write to a property. Should the following code work?
private static void WritePropertyValue(object obj, string propertyName, object valueToWrite)
{
if (obj == null) return null;
var type = obj.GetType();
var propertyInfo = type.GetProperty(propertyName);
if (propertyInfo == null) return null;
propertyInfo.SetValue(obj, valueToWrite, null);
}
Will this break client-side validation for other attributes/properties? I have other properties in my ViewModel that I have decorated with built-in ValidationAttributes, such as [Required] and [Range]. I have also enabled client-side validation for them. Will applying my new attribute to the whole ViewModel class completely break client-side validation or will validation for the other properties be performed on the client and then total validation will be performed on the server?
