Validation groups in .Net

Evening all. Not posted in a while as I’ve plenty going on in the ‘real’ world. Anyway, last week I was building a search form whereby you could either search by reference code, or by using full search criteria.

The problem I had is that both search ‘forms’ existed on one Web Form, and I was using Validation controls to check each. So when using either submit button, both search groups were validated together. Not useful when I wanted to submit each set of controls independently of each other. So there I was, coding to disable either set of validation controls when a submit button is clicked.

Validation groups I hear you cry. Yes, I know that now.

Add the ValidationGroup attribute to all controls, so you can group them together, and submit them separately from other groups. Example:

<form id="form1" runat="server">
  <p>
    <asp:TextBox Id="TextBox1" Runat="server" ValidationGroup="First" />
    <asp:TextBox Id="TextBox2" Runat="server" ValidationGroup="First" />
    <asp:RequiredFieldValidator
      Id="RequiredFieldValidator1"
      Runat="server"
      ValidationGroup="First"
      ErrorMessage="TextBox1 should not be blank"
      ControlToValidate="TextBox1"
    />

    <asp:Button
      ID="Submit1"
      Runat="server"
      ValidationGroup="First"
      Text="Submit 1"
    />
  </p>

  <p>
    <asp:TextBox Id="TextBox3" Runat="server" ValidationGroup="Second" />
    <asp:TextBox Id="TextBox4" Runat="server" ValidationGroup="Second" />
    <asp:RequiredFieldValidator
      Id="RequiredFieldValidator2"
      Runat="server"
      ErrorMessage=" TextBox3 should not be blank"
      ControlToValidate="TextBox3"
      ValidationGroup="Second"
    />

    <asp:Button
      Id="Submit2"
      Runat="server"
      ValidationGroup="Second"
      Text="Submit 2"
    />
  </p>
</form>

Aye, easy when you know. Googling is a wonderful thing.