Validating Data Through Data Annotations

Aside from the property level validation, RadDataForm supports validation through data annotations. Validation is performed on any occasion when changes are committed - navigation, insertion of new items or when AutoCommit is set to True, for example. This feature is available for both auto-generated and customized fields and all of the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations validation attributes are supported.

In order to enable this kind of validation you first need to include the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations namespace:

Example 1: Including System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations

using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations; 

Imports System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations 

Now, let's define a simple Employee class with validation attributes.

Example 2: Creating an Employee class with validation attributes

public class Employee 
{ 
    [Required] 
    public string FirstName { get; set; } 
    [Required(ErrorMessage = "LastName is required")] 
    public string LastName { get; set; } 
    [Range(21, 70)] 
    public int Age { get; set; } 
    [RegularExpression("[a-z]#[0-9]")] 
    public string EmployeeID { get; set; } 
} 

Public Class Employee 
    <Required()> 
    Public Property FirstName() As String 
        Get 
            Return m_FirstName 
        End Get 
        Set(value As String) 
            m_FirstName = value 
        End Set 
    End Property 
    Private m_FirstName As String 
    <Required(ErrorMessage:="LastName is required")> 
    Public Property LastName() As String 
        Get 
            Return m_LastName 
        End Get 
        Set(value As String) 
            m_LastName = value 
        End Set 
    End Property 
    Private m_LastName As String 
    <Range(21, 70)> 
    Public Property Age() As Integer 
        Get 
            Return m_Age 
        End Get 
        Set(value As Integer) 
            m_Age = value 
        End Set 
    End Property 
    Private m_Age As Integer 
    <RegularExpression("[a-z]#[0-9]")> 
    Public Property EmployeeID() As String 
        Get 
            Return m_EmployeeID 
        End Get 
        Set(value As String) 
            m_EmployeeID = value 
        End Set 
    End Property 
    Private m_EmployeeID As String 
End Class 

Figure 1 shows RadDataForm's state after validation has been performed.

Figure 1: RadDataForm after validation has been performed

As seen in the above figure, item level validation errors are not respected by the separate editors' validation features (i.e. no validation tooltip is shown for the TextBox). Such behavior is expected, as respective bindings never get notified about these errors.

In order to notify the UI that validation has failed, you will need to throw a ValidationException. Example 3 shows how to do so through the static ValidateProperty method of the Validator class.

Example 3: Set validation through data DataAnnotations

private string firstName; 
 
    [Required] 
    public string FirstName 
    { 
        get { return this.firstName; } 
        set 
        { 
            if (value != this.firstName) 
            { 
                ValidationContext validationContext = new ValidationContext(this, null, null); 
                validationContext.MemberName = "FirstName"; 
                Validator.ValidateProperty(value, validationContext); 
                this.firstName = value; 
                this.OnPropertyChanged("FirstName"); 
            } 
        } 
    } 

Private _firstName As String 
 
    <Required> 
    Public Property FirstName() As String 
        Get 
            Return Me._firstName 
        End Get 
        Set(ByVal value As String) 
            If value <> Me._firstName Then 
                Dim validationContext As New ValidationContext(Me, Nothing, Nothing) 
                validationContext.MemberName = "FirstName" 
                Validator.ValidateProperty(value, validationContext) 
                Me._firstName = value 
                Me.OnPropertyChanged("FirstName") 
            End If 
        End Set 
    End Property 

Please, have in mind that those errors are removed from the validation summary on the next committing operation, unlike the property level ones, which are removed on property change.