Fluent Validation in MVC: specify RuleSet for Client-Side validation

Question

In my ASP.NET MVC 4 project I have validator for one of my view models, that contain rules definition for RuleSets. Edit ruleset used in Post action, when all c

Answer 1

Adding to this as the library has been updated to account for this situation...

As of 7.4.0, it's possible to dynamically select one or multiple rule sets based on your specific conditions;

ControllerContext.SetRulesetForClientsideMessages("ruleset1", "ruleset2" /*...etc*);

Answer 2

After digging in FluentValidation sources I found solution. To tell view that you want to use specific ruleset, decorate your action, that returns view, with RuleSetForClientSideMessagesAttribute:

[HttpGet]
[RuleSetForClientSideMessages("Edit")]
public ActionResult ShopInfo()
{
    var viewModel = OwnedShop.ToViewModel();
    return PartialView("_ShopInfo", viewModel);
}

If you need to specify more than one ruleset — use another constructor overload and separate rulesets with commas:

[RuleSetForClientSideMessages("Edit", "Email", "Url")]
public ActionResult ShopInfo()
{
    var viewModel = OwnedShop.ToViewModel();
    return PartialView("_ShopInfo", viewModel);
}

If you need to decide about which ruleset would be used directly in action — you can hack FluentValidation by putting array in HttpContext next way (RuleSetForClientSideMessagesAttribute currently is not designed to be overriden):

public ActionResult ShopInfo(validateOnlyEmail)
{
    var emailRuleSet = new[]{"Email"};
    var allRuleSet = new[]{"Edit", "Url", "Email"};

    var actualRuleSet = validateOnlyEmail ? emailRuleSet : allRuleSet;
    HttpContext.Items["_FV_ClientSideRuleSet"] = actualRuleSet;

    return PartialView("_ShopInfo", viewModel);
}

Unfortunately, there are no info about this attribute in official documentation.

UPDATE

In newest version we have special extension method for dynamic ruleset setting, that you should use inside your action method or inside OnActionExecuting/OnActionExecuted/OnResultExecuting override methods of controller:

ControllerContext.SetRulesetForClientsideMessages("Edit", "Email");

Or inside custom ActionFilter/ResultFilter:

public class MyFilter: ActionFilterAttribute
{
    public override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext context)
    {
        ((Controller)context.Controller).ControllerContext.SetRulesetForClientsideMessages("Edit", "Email");
        //same syntax for OnActionExecuted/OnResultExecuting
    }
}

Answer 3

Documentation on this can be found in the latest FluentValidation site: https://fluentvalidation.net/aspnet#asp-net-mvc-5

Adding the CustomizeValidator attribute to the action will apply the ruleset within the pipeline when the validator is being initialized and the model is being automatically validated.

   public ActionResult Save([CustomizeValidator(RuleSet="MyRuleset")] Customer cust) {
   // ...
   }