Doodle Graphics

Update: As of Entity Framework 4.1, the MinLengthAttribute is no longer needed as it's now part of the framework, but the length is the second parameter in the string format argument list, with the field name in position {0}. 06/06/2011

As I hinted at in my post "Upgrading to ASP.NET MVC 2.0", one of the main remaining changes I wanted to make after upgrading to version 2.0 was to move to using the DataAnnotations that gained first class support.

I've now done this, which meant that I've removed all the code based on the Nerd Dinner validation patterns, and switched to using the Validation Attributes classes.

I started with the basic RequiredAttribute to ensure that all required fields had a value, but then wanted to do a bit more - on my Contact form for example wanted to ensure that the name supplied was at least 3 characters long, that the email address used my rather more rigorous regex than ScottGu's, and that the message was at least 10 characters long.

A simple answer was to use the RegularExpressionAttribute, with settings such as @".{3,}" for the minimum length, and the lengthy pattern for emails, however I wasn't happy with this for a number of reasons:

1. I wanted to use the "minimum length" validator on multiple properties, with different minimum lengths but very similar error messages including details of the length.
2. Because my email pattern is compiled using string.Format to make it more manageable, I can't use it in a attribute as it needs to be a "compile time constant".

I also wanted something similar to the IntegerValidator in the Configuration namespace that allows me to specify just a MinValue, rather than the Range Validator, where I needed to supply an arbitrary high value to meet my needs.

As I'm not yet using the .NET 4 framework, I don't have access to the CustomValidatorAttribute, that's no bad thing in my mind, as I'm not a big fan of the "Magic String" form of configuration that I would need to use.

To that end I've created three validators:

public class IsEmailAttribute : RegularExpressionAttribute

{}

public class MinValueAttribute : ValidationAttribute

{}

public class MinLengthAttribute : ValidationAttribute

{}

IsEmailAttribute just supplies the email pattern (built in a read only property) to the base constructor, while MinValueAttribute and MinLengthAttribute both implement the IsValid method, and override the FormatErrorMessage to enable me to include the set value of the validator.

The full code for the MinLengthAttribute is:
[AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Property | AttributeTargets.Field, AllowMultiple = false)]

public class MinLengthAttribute : ValidationAttribute

{

  public int MinLength { get; set; }



  public MinLengthAttribute(int minLength) {

    MinLength = minLength;

  }



  public override bool IsValid(object value) {

    bool isValid = false;



    var stringValue = value as string;



    if (null != stringValue 

        && MinLength <= stringValue.Length) {

      isValid = true;

    }



    return isValid;

  }



  public override string FormatErrorMessage(string name){

    return string.Format(ErrorMessageString, MinLength, name);

  }

}


The one big problem I've had with doing it this way is that the automation of the client-side validation doesn't work, but as it doesn't plug into the Validation Summary area, this is no great loss, as I'd have to redesign my forms more than I'd like to implement that.
The other major change I had to make to my code was to move to more of a ViewModel pattern - on some of my admin screens I was taking a FormsCollection rather than an explicit model which allowed me to have a photo form with text boxes for Caption, Order and Tags (which holds a comma seperated list of tags), but this doesn't map nicely to the Photo model, where Tags is a collection of Tag models. Writing a ViewModel for editing photos, all the annotations wired up nicely, and gave me much better control of what was being sent to the view.
One thing that was needed uploading photos that I did need to do was handle the case of a user not including an image - thankfully, the previous code set me in good stead:
[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)]

public ActionResult UploadPhoto(int id,

                                EditPhoto editPhoto,

                HttpPostedFileBase ImageData) {

  ViewData["Title"] = "Create Photo";

  ViewData["Message"] = "Upload a new photo";



  if (ModelState.IsValid

      && null != ImageData

      && ImageData.ContentLength != 0) {

    // Persist to database

    // Return appropriate view based on Request.IsAjaxRequest

  }



  if (null == ImageData || ImageData.ContentLength != 0) {

    // ImageData is missing

    ModelState.AddModelError("ImageData", "You must supply a photo.");

  }



  // Return appropriate view based on Request.IsAjaxRequest

}

So we can still add additional errors to the ModelState property, allowing us to highlight additional fields that aren't part of the ViewModel.
Where I haven't created a ViewModel, I've used the MetadataTypeAttribute on the partial classes created for the Entity Framework classes:
[MetadataType(typeof(AlbumMetadata))]

public partial class Album {

  public string Description {

    get {

      return string.Format(

        "Photos from the album \"{0}\" on http://www.doodle.co.uk/Albums.aspx/{1}/{2}",

        Caption, AlbumId, Caption.CreateSlug());

    }

  }

}



public class AlbumMetadata {

  [Required(ErrorMessage = "You must supply a caption that is at least 3 characters long.")]

  [MinLength(3, ErrorMessage = "The caption must be at least {0} characters long.")]

  public string Caption { get; set; }

}


Next time: Implementing FlickrNet.

    

        Filed under: .Net, Entity Framework, Site Updates