ASP.NET Validation Made Easy

Introduction

Every time I used ASP.NET and Ajax validation, I didn't like it. I literally wrote more than 5 lines of XML to validate a single textbox control, it took too much time, made debugging code very difficult and I don't like too much code in one place. Then I got this idea. I made a user control for textbox and wrote validation for it, now if you have 5 or 6 textboxes in one form. You will have to write 5 or 6 lines for all of them.

Using the Code

First, I created a user control for the textbox the code is as under:

TXBXX.ASCX File

<%@ Control Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" 
CodeFile="TXBXX.ascx.cs" Inherits="UserControls_TXBXX" %>
<%@ Register Assembly="AjaxControlToolkit" 
Namespace="AjaxControlToolkit" TagPrefix="ajax" %>
<asp:textbox id="TX" runat="server" textmode="SingleLine" />
<asp:requiredfieldvalidator id="RF" runat="server" 
errormessage="-" controltovalidate="TX" 
display="None" setfocusonerror="True" />
<ajax:validatorcalloutextender id="VC"  runat="server" 
targetcontrolid="RF" enabled="True">

TXBXX.ASCX.CS File

public partial class UserControls_TXBXX : System.Web.UI.UserControl
{
    public string Text
    {
        get
        {
            return TX.Text.Trim();
        }
        set
        {
            TX.Text = value.Trim();
        }
    }

    public string CSS
    {
        set
        {
            TX.Attributes.Add("class", value);
        }
    }

    public string Validation
    {
        set
        {
            TX.ValidationGroup = value;
            RF.ValidationGroup = value;
        }
    }

    public string ErrMsg
    {
        set
        {
            RF.ErrorMessage = value;
        }
    }

    public TextBoxMode TextMode
    {
        set
        {
            TX.TextMode = value;
        }
    }

    protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {

    }
}

And this is how we use it:

Import the control:

<%@ Register Src="../../UserControls/TXBXX.ascx" 
TagName="TXBXX" TagPrefix="TXBX" %>

Use the control:

<TXBX:txbxx runat="server" textmode="MultiLine" 
validation="newnote" errmsg="Please Provide Name" id="TX_Name" /> 

Here is an example of this same code you would use otherwise:

<asp:textbox runat="server" id="TX_Name">
<asp:requiredfieldvalidator setfocusonerror="true" 
errormessage="Please Provide Name" display="None" 
validationgroup="newnote" controltovalidate="TxBx_Name" 
runat="server" id="RFV_Name">
<ajax:validatorcalloutextender enabled="True" 
targetcontrolid="REV_Name"  runat="server" id="VCE_REV_Name">

Points of Interest

It helped me in coding quickly, it saved my time, my code is clean and short and I can easily set values of a textbox at one go. I hope it helps you too. :) Please send me your feedback on nasir_ml@hotmail.com.

History

• 9^th January, 2014: Initial post