DataAnnotations “NotRequired” attribute

Question

I\'ve a model kind of complicated.

I have my UserViewModel which has several properties and two of them are HomePhone and WorkPhone

Answer 1

[UPDATED on 5/24/2012 to make the idea more clear]

I'm not sure this is the right approach but I think you can extend the concept and can create a more generic / reusable approach.

In ASP.NET MVC the validation happens at the binding stage. When you are posting a form to the server the DefaultModelBinder is the one that creates model instances from the request information and add the validation errors to the ModelStateDictionary.

In your case, as long as the binding happens with the HomePhone the validations will fire up and I think we can't do much about this by creating custom validation attributes or similar kind.

All I'm thinking is not to create model instance at all for HomePhone property when there are no values available in the form (the areacode, countrycode and number or empty), when we control the binding we control the validation, for that, we have to create a custom model binder.

In the custom model binder we are checking if the property is HomePhone and if the form contains any values for it's properties and if not we don't bind the property and the validations won't happen for HomePhone. Simply, the value of HomePhone will be null in the UserViewModel.

  public class CustomModelBinder : DefaultModelBinder
  {
      protected override void BindProperty(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext, PropertyDescriptor propertyDescriptor)
      {
        if (propertyDescriptor.Name == "HomePhone")
        {
          var form = controllerContext.HttpContext.Request.Form;

          var countryCode = form["HomePhone.CountryCode"];
          var areaCode = form["HomePhone.AreaCode"];
          var number = form["HomePhone.Number"];

          if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(countryCode) && string.IsNullOrEmpty(areaCode) && string.IsNullOrEmpty(number))
            return;
        }

        base.BindProperty(controllerContext, bindingContext, propertyDescriptor);
      }
  }

Finally you have to register the custom model binder in global.asax.cs.

  ModelBinders.Binders.Add(typeof(UserViewModel), new CustomModelBinder());

So now of you have an action that takes UserViewModel as parameter,

 [HttpPost]
 public Action Post(UserViewModel userViewModel)
 {

 }

Our custom model binder come into play and of form doesn't post any values for the areacode, countrycode and number for HomePhone, there won't be any validation errors and the userViewModel.HomePhone is null. If the form posts atleast any one of the value for those properties then the validation will happen for HomePhone as expected.

Answer 2

I've been using this amazing nuget that does dynamic annotations: ExpressiveAnnotations

It allows you to do things that weren't possible before such as

[AssertThat("ReturnDate >= Today()")]
public DateTime? ReturnDate { get; set; }

or even

public bool GoAbroad { get; set; }
[RequiredIf("GoAbroad == true")]
public string PassportNumber { get; set; }

Update: Compile annotations in a unit test to ensure no errors exist

As mentioned by @diego this might be intimidating to write code in a string, but the following is what I use to Unit Test all validations looking for compilation errors.

namespace UnitTest
{
    public static class ExpressiveAnnotationTestHelpers
    {
        public static IEnumerable<ExpressiveAttribute> CompileExpressiveAttributes(this Type type)
        {
            var properties = type.GetProperties()
                .Where(p => Attribute.IsDefined(p, typeof(ExpressiveAttribute)));
            var attributes = new List<ExpressiveAttribute>();
            foreach (var prop in properties)
            {
                var attribs = prop.GetCustomAttributes<ExpressiveAttribute>().ToList();
                attribs.ForEach(x => x.Compile(prop.DeclaringType));
                attributes.AddRange(attribs);
            }
            return attributes;
        }
    }
    [TestClass]
    public class ExpressiveAnnotationTests
    {
        [TestMethod]
        public void CompileAnnotationsTest()
        {
            // ... or for all assemblies within current domain:
            var compiled = Assembly.Load("NamespaceOfEntitiesWithExpressiveAnnotations").GetTypes()
                .SelectMany(t => t.CompileExpressiveAttributes()).ToList();

            Console.WriteLine($"Total entities using Expressive Annotations: {compiled.Count}");

            foreach (var compileItem in compiled)
            {
                Console.WriteLine($"Expression: {compileItem.Expression}");
            }

            Assert.IsTrue(compiled.Count > 0);
        }


    }
}

Answer 3

I wouldn't go with the modelBinder; I'd use a custom ValidationAttribute:

public class UserViewModel
{
    [Required]
    public string Name { get; set; }

    public HomePhoneViewModel HomePhone { get; set; }

    public WorkPhoneViewModel WorkPhone { get; set; }
}

public class HomePhoneViewModel : PhoneViewModel 
{
}

public class WorkPhoneViewModel : PhoneViewModel 
{
}

public class PhoneViewModel 
{
    public string CountryCode { get; set; }

    public string AreaCode { get; set; }

    [CustomRequiredPhone]
    public string Number { get; set; }
}

And then:

[AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Property]
public class CustomRequiredPhone : ValidationAttribute
{
    protected override ValidationResult IsValid(object value, ValidationContext validationContext)
    {
        ValidationResult validationResult = null;

        // Check if Model is WorkphoneViewModel, if so, activate validation
        if (validationContext.ObjectInstance.GetType() == typeof(WorkPhoneViewModel)
         && string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace((string)value) == true)
        {
            this.ErrorMessage = "Phone is required";
            validationResult = new ValidationResult(this.ErrorMessage);
        }
        else
        {
            validationResult = ValidationResult.Success;
        }

        return validationResult;
    }
}

If it is not clear, I'll provide an explanation but I think it's pretty self-explanatory.

Answer 4

Just some observation: the following code couse a problem if the binding is more than simple filed. I you have a case that in object have nested object it going to skip it and caouse that some filed not been binded in nested object.

Possible solution is

protected override void BindProperty(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext, PropertyDescriptor propertyDescriptor)
     {
         if (!propertyDescriptor.Attributes.OfType<RequiredAttribute>().Any())
         {
             var form = controllerContext.HttpContext.Request.Form;

             if (form.AllKeys.Where(k => k.StartsWith(string.Format(propertyDescriptor.Name, "."))).Count() > 0)
             {
                 if (form.AllKeys.Where(k => k.StartsWith(string.Format(propertyDescriptor.Name, "."))).All(
                         k => string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(form[k])))
                     return;
             }
         }

         base.BindProperty(controllerContext, bindingContext, propertyDescriptor);
     }

much thanks to Altaf Khatri