Conditional validation depending which MVC button pushed

Question

Conditional validation depending which MVC button pushed

J Fisher 0

I have a scaffolded form in MVC with two buttons, Save and Submit. I want conditional validation: Save, no validation; Submit, validation.

In the cshtml I have:

...
<td>
    @Html.EditorFor(model => model.DSCRPTN, new { htmlAttributes = new {@class = "col-md-6", autocomplete = "off", @style = "width:1000px" } })
</td>
<td>
    @Html.DropDownListFor(model => model.FUNDING_SRC1, (SelectList)ViewBag.FSRC, "<Select>", new { style = "width:125px" })
</td>
...
<div class="col-md-offset-2 col-md-10">
    <br />
    <input id="Button2Submit" type="submit" value="Submit" name="submit" class="btn btn-default" />
    <input id="Button2Save" type="submit" value="Save" name="submit" class="btn btn-default" 
    @Html.ActionLink("Cancel", "Index", null, null, new { @class = "btn btn-default" })
</div>
...

In the controller I currently have:

if (submit == "Save") {Session["SavePushed"] = true;}
if (submit == "Submit") {Session["SubmitPushed"] = true;}

Potential solutions:
1. A custom validator does not work because it is executed before the controller code is, making my passed Session variables null.
2. Passing dummy values thru the model to fool the Required=true validator does not work, since modelstate is still false with dummy values.
3. Adding a new model for two models total, one with Required=true and the other w/o Required... Has anyone tried this?
4. Client-side validation. Before I switch over to this, has anyone tried #3? Thanks.

2 answers

Your answer

Answer 1

AgaveJoe 1,510

As far as I can tell, you are asking how to clear model state validation errors in a controller if the Save submit button was clicked.

if(submit == "Save")
{
    ModelState.Clear();
}

If you are trying to ignore validation errors on the client (unobtrusive), then you have to write JavaScript to catch the save button click and submit the form with JavaScript.

J Fisher 0 Reputation points

2023-09-25T18:41:49.59+00:00

ModelState.Clear() is not clearing out the EntityValidationErrors property when Required attributes are in the model.
AgaveJoe 1,510 Reputation points

2023-09-25T19:46:30.8866667+00:00
Sorry, try looping over the keys.

if(submit == "Save") { foreach(string key in ModelState.Keys) { ModelState[key].Errors.Clear(); } }

Answer 2

Bruce (SqlWork.com) 77,686 Volunteer Moderator

just turn off client validation for the save button:

<input id="Button2Save" type="submit" value="Save" formnovalidate name="submit" class="btn btn-default" />

J Fisher 0 Reputation points

2023-09-25T18:43:58.3666667+00:00

formnovalidate seems to be client-side only. I am trying to accomplish conditional validation on the server side, perhaps with two models (one with Required attributes, and one without), if this is doable, before changing my validation code to the client side.
Bruce (SqlWork.com) 77,686 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator

2023-09-25T19:00:03.8333333+00:00

server side just clear errors as suggested. Your save doesn't care about errors. You will need to decide what to do abut missing non-nullable fields or invalid input values (bad numeric or date) if you have any. to correctly implement save, all postback values should be strings. good example of why you do not use entities as postback models.
J Fisher 0 Reputation points

2023-09-25T19:18:27.4633333+00:00

I added ModelState.Clear(), which made ModelState.IsValid true with Required attributes in the model, but at db.saveChanges() it crashes with System.Data.Entity.Validation.DbEntityValidationException: 'Validation failed for one or more entities. See 'EntityValidationErrors' property for more details.'

All database fields accept nulls. With the Required attributes commented out in the model, the record saves fine to the database when Save is pushed.
Bruce (SqlWork.com) 77,686 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator

2023-09-25T19:40:32.0866667+00:00

again you should not mix entity, business and view models. if the value is not required (nullable) in the database, why is required in the entity model?

maybe you should have a separate table for draft entries.
J Fisher 0 Reputation points

2023-09-25T19:43:22.3+00:00

The value is Required if the user pushes Submit button. If the user pushes Save button, I just want to save a draft to the database.
Lan Huang-MSFT 30,186 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2023-09-27T07:02:52.1866667+00:00
Hi @J Fisher,

Maybe you can try using the RequiredIf attribute to validate the model. requiredIf is provided through the MVC Foolproof Validation package.

https://www.nuget.org/packages/foolproof

public class test { public string submit { get; set; } [RequiredIf("submit", "Submit", ErrorMessage = "Please enter a DSCRPTN")] public string DSCRPTN { get; set; } public string FUNDING_SRC1 { get; set; } }

Or remove the default "required" annotation from the model and make your custom validation before the "ModelState.IsValid" on Controller 'Post' action? Like this:

if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(yourClass.Property1) && String.IsNullOrEmpty(yourClass.dependantProperty)) ModelState.AddModelError("dependantProperty", "It´s necessary to select some 'dependant'.");
Bruce (SqlWork.com) 77,686 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator

2023-09-27T16:18:52.1+00:00

if the column is not required in the database, then it should not be required in enitity model. only require in the view model.

J Fisher 0

@Lan Huang-MSFT RequiredIf seems so close to working, but I am getting:

Error in Post AUTH_TRACKING_FORM/Create() - Save: System.Data.Entity.Validation.DbEntityValidationException: Validation failed for one or more entities. See 'EntityValidationErrors' property for more details.
   at System.Data.Entity.Internal.InternalContext.SaveChanges()

I only want validation to happen if submit == "Submit". But it is validating when submit == "Save", despite RequiredIf. Note: It seems Foolproof, or the equivalent, is included with VS2022, since RequiredIf was already defined without NuGet.

Bruce (SqlWork.com) 77,686 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator

2023-09-27T23:30:23.21+00:00

to use RequiredIf with an entity model, the value you are testing for must be a column in the table. you could add a "draft" column to the table to test against.

but if the column is not required to saved to the database, why mark as required in the entity?
Lan Huang-MSFT 30,186 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2023-09-28T06:43:13.07+00:00
Hi @J Fisher,

I only want validation to happen if submit == "Submit". But it is validating when submit == "Save", despite RequiredIf. Note: It seems Foolproof, or the equivalent, is included with VS2022, since RequiredIf was already defined without NuGet.

I think RequiredIf requires the nuget package. Your code RequiredIf was already defined. Did you customize the RequiredIfTrueAttribute yourself?

As Bruce said (to use RequiredIf with an entity model, the value you are testing for must be a column in the table.).

So I defined public string submit { get; set; } for testing purposes.Maybe you're not using RequiredIf correctly so it's validating when submit == "Save"

Maybe you can try catching the details of DbEntityValidationException.

try { db.SaveChanges(); } catch (DbEntityValidationException ex) { foreach (var entityValidationErrors in ex.EntityValidationErrors) { foreach (var validationError in entityValidationErrors.ValidationErrors) { Response.Write("Property: " + validationError.PropertyName + " Error: " + validationError.ErrorMessage); } } }

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Conditional validation depending which MVC button pushed

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