This topic contains a brief description about ASP.NET MVC. If you are looking for ASP.NET MVC Hosting, you can always consider ASPHostCentral and you can start from our lowest Standard Plan @$4.99/month to host your .NET MVC site.

Abstract:

Validation is one of the most important aspects of an application. ASP.NET MVC framework provides multiple ways to validate the user input. In this article we are going to demonstrate how to perform validation in an ASP.NET application using Controller action, IDataErrorInfo and DataAnnotations methods.

Simple Validation:

The most simple way to perform validation is to perform it inside the Controller. The controller will be responsible for checking for the validity of the data. Let's check out the code for the view.

<asp:Content ID="Content2" ContentPlaceHolderID="MainContent" runat="server">

    <h2>Simple Validation</h2>
        
   <% using (var form = Html.BeginForm(new { Action = "SimpleValidation" }))
      { %>     
        
   FirstName:  <%= Html.TextBox("FirstName")%>
   
   LastName: <%= Html.TextBox("LastName")%>
    
    <input type="submit" value="Save" />
    
    <% } %>

</asp:Content>

As, you can see the view is very simple and consists of FirstName and LastName TextBoxes. The submit button will submit the form and invoke the "SimpleValidation" action of the controller.

The controller used in this case is the HomeController. The SimpleValidation action is responsible for performing the validation on the data. The implementation of the SimpleValidation action is shown below:

public ActionResult SimpleValidation(Customer customer)
        {
            if(String.IsNullOrEmpty(customer.FirstName))
                ModelState.AddModelError("FirstName","FirstName cannot be blank!");

            if(String.IsNullOrEmpty(customer.LastName))
                ModelState.AddModelError("LastName","LastName cannot be blank!");

            if (!ModelState.IsValid)
                return View("SimpleValidation");

            return View("Confirmation");
        }

The SimpleValidation action accepts the Customer object as an input parameter. This is performed by Model Binders feature in ASP.NET MVC framework.

Inside the SimpleValidation action the ModelState.AddModelError method is used to populate the error collection of the model. The ModelState.IsValid property represents if there are any errors in the model. If the model is invalid then we simply return the current view which in this case is "SimpleValidation". If the model is valid then we return the "Confirmation" view.

Finally, make the adjustments in the view to display the errors. This is performed by the HTML helpers ValidationMessage as shown below:

<asp:Content ID="Content2" ContentPlaceHolderID="MainContent" runat="server">

    <h2>Simple Validation</h2>
        
   <% using (var form = Html.BeginForm(new { Action = "SimpleValidation" }))
      { %>     
        
        
        
   FirstName:  <%= Html.TextBox("FirstName")%>
   <%= Html.ValidationMessage("FirstName","*") %>
   
   LastName: <%= Html.TextBox("LastName")%>
    <%= Html.ValidationMessage("LastName","*") %>
    
    <input type="submit" value="Save" />
    
    <% } %>

</asp:Content>

Now, run the above page and click on the "submit" page without inputting the values for the FirstName and LastName. You will realize that the page was not submitted successfully since it was invalid. You can even make the errors more visible by using the ValidationSummary HTML helper as shown below:

 <% using (var form = Html.BeginForm(new { Action = "SimpleValidation" }))
      { %>     
        
        
    <%= Html.ValidationSummary("Errors") %>     
        
   FirstName:  <%= Html.TextBox("FirstName")%>
   <%= Html.ValidationMessage("FirstName","*") %>
   
   LastName: <%= Html.TextBox("LastName")%>
    <%= Html.ValidationMessage("LastName","*") %>
    
    <input type="submit" value="Save" />
    
    <% } %>

Validation Using IDataErrorInfo:

The second method of performing validation in an ASP.NET MVC application is by using the IDataErrorInfo class. This method involves the model class to inherit from the IDataErrorInfo interface. The implementation is shown below:

 public class Customer  : IDataErrorInfo
    {
        private string _firstName;
        private string _lastName;
        private Dictionary<String,String> _errors = new Dictionary<string, string>();

        
        public string FirstName
        {
            get { return _firstName; }
            set
            {
                if(String.IsNullOrEmpty(value))
                    _errors.Add("FirstName","FirstName cannot be blank!");

                _firstName = value;
            }
        }

        public string LastName
        {
            get { return _lastName; }
            set
            {
                if(String.IsNullOrEmpty(value))        
                    _errors.Add("LastName","LastName cannot be blank!");

                _lastName = value;
            }
        }
        
        public string this[string columnName]
        {
            get
            {
                if (_errors.ContainsKey(columnName))
                    return _errors[columnName];

                return String.Empty;
            }
        }

        public string Error
        {
            get { return String.Empty;  }
        }
    }

Using this method the controller action is simplified as the validation is now moved into the model itself. The implementation is shown below:

public ActionResult ValidationUsingIDataErrorInfo(Customer customer)
        {
            if (!ModelState.IsValid)
                return View("ValidationUsingIDataErrorInfo");

            return View("Confirmation");
        }

Using DataAnnotations:

The DataAnnotations provides the most easiest way to perform validation in an ASP.NET MVC application. It uses attributes to perform validation.

You need to download "Data Annotations Model Binder Sample". Once, it is downloaded you need to build the solution in Visual Studio which will create the "Microsoft.Web.Mvc.DataAnnotations" and System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations" assemblies. The final step is to set the DataAnnotations default binder to the Microsoft.Web.Mvc.DataAnnotations.DataAnnotationsModelBinder();  in the Global.asax file as shown below:

protected void Application_Start()
        {
            RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);
            ModelBinders.Binders.DefaultBinder = new Microsoft.Web.Mvc.DataAnnotations.DataAnnotationsModelBinder();

        }

Now, in order to use the validation you will simply use the attributes on the model properties as shown below:

public class Customer
    {
        [Required(ErrorMessage = "FirstName cannot be blank")]
        public string FirstName { get; set; }

        [Required(ErrorMessage ="LastName cannot be blank!")]  
        public string LastName { get; set; }
    }

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- High Performance and Reliable Server - We never ever overload our server with tons of clients. We always load balance our server to make sure we can deliver an excellent service, coupling with the high performance and reliable server
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- Daily Backup Service - We realise that your website is very important to your business and hence, we never ever forget to create a daily backup. Your database and website are backup every night into a permanent remote tape drive to ensure that they are always safe and secure. The backup is always ready and available anytime you need it
- Easy Site Administration - With our powerful control panel, you can always administer most of your site features easily without even needing to contact for our Support Team. Additionally, you can also install more than 100 FREE applications directly via our Control Panel in 1 minute!

Happy hosting!

This topic contains a brief description about ASP.NET MVC. If you are looking for ASP.NET MVC Hosting, you can always consider ASPHostCentral.com and you can start from our lowest Standard Plan @$4.99/month to host your .NET MVC site. We promise we’ll not disappoint you and we will give the best service for you. For us, the most important thing is you.

The application is intentionally simple. The goal was to provide members of the ASP.NET community with an application that they could use to quickly learn how to build new applications with ASP.NET MVC.

The Contact Manager application is an address book application. The application enables you to list, create, edit, and delete contacts.

We built the application over multiple iterations. With each iteration, we gradually improved the application. The goal of this multiple iteration approach was to enable you to understand the reason for each change.

Literation 1:
Create the application. In the first iteration, we create the Contact Manager in the simplest way possible. We add support for basic database operations: Create, Read, Update, and Delete (CRUD).

Literation 2:
Make the application look nice. In this iteration, we improve the appearance of the application by modifying the default ASP.NET MVC view master page and cascading style sheet.

Literation 3:
Add form validation. In the third iteration, we add basic form validation. We prevent people from submitting a form without completing required form fields. We also validate email addresses and phone numbers.

Literation 4:
Make the application loosely coupled. In this third iteration, we take advantage of several software design patterns to make it easier to maintain and modify the Contact Manager application. For example, we refactor our application to use the Repository pattern and the Dependency Injection pattern.

Literation 5:
Create unit tests. In the fifth iteration, we make our application easier to maintain and modify by adding unit tests. We mock our data model classes and build unit tests for our controllers and validation logic.

Literation 6:
Use test-driven development. In this sixth iteration, we add new functionality to our application by writing unit tests first and writing code against the unit tests. In this iteration, we add contact groups.

Literation 7:
Add Ajax functionality. In the seventh iteration, we improve the responsiveness and performance of our application by adding support for Ajax.

Each literation has an associated tutorial.

Top Reasons to trust your ASP.NET MVC website to ASPHostCentral.com

What we think makes ASPHostCentral.com so compelling is how deeply integrated all the pieces are. We integrate and centralize everything--from the systems to the control panel software to the process of buying a domain name. For us, that means we can innovate literally everywhere. We've put the guys who develop the software and the admins who watch over the server right next to the 24-hour Fanatical Support team, so we all learn from each other:

- 24/7-based Support - We never fall asleep and we run a service that is operating 24/7 a year. Even everyone is on holiday during Easter or Christmas/New Year, we are always behind our desk serving our customers
- Excellent Uptime Rate - Our key strength in delivering the service to you is to maintain our server uptime rate. We never ever happy to see your site goes down and we truly understand that it will hurt your onlines business. If your service is down, it will certainly become our pain and we will certainly look for the right pill to kill the pain ASAP
- High Performance and Reliable Server - We never ever overload our server with tons of clients. We always load balance our server to make sure we can deliver an excellent service, coupling with the high performance and reliable server
- Experts in ASP.NET MVC Hosting - Given the scale of our environment, we have recruited and developed some of the best talent in the hosting technology that you are using. Our team is strong because of the experience and talents of the individuals who make up ASPHostCentral
- Daily Backup Service - We realise that your website is very important to your business and hence, we never ever forget to create a daily backup. Your database and website are backup every night into a permanent remote tape drive to ensure that they are always safe and secure. The backup is always ready and available anytime you need it
- Easy Site Administration - With our powerful control panel, you can always administer most of your site features easily without even needing to contact for our Support Team. Additionally, you can also install more than 100 FREE applications directly via our Control Panel in 1 minute!

Happy hosting!

ASP.NET MVC is a free, fully supported, Microsoft product that enables developers to easily build great web applications. It provides total control over your HTML and URLs, enables rich AJAX integration, and facilitates test driven development.


Here is a list of various ASP.NET MVC Sample Applications demonstrating the new ASP.NET MVC Framework from Microsoft. If you like to have any of these applications hosted on a server, you can consider ASPHostCentral.com as your ASP.NET MVC hosting provider. With a package starting from only $4.99/month, you can have the latest ASP.NET MVC 2 RC framework running on our server.


CarTrackr

CarTrackr is a sample application for the ASP.NET MVC framework using the repository pattern and dependency injection using the Unity application block. It was written for various demos in presentations done by Maarten Balliauw. CarTrackr is an online software application designed to help you understand and track your fuel usage and kilometers driven. You will have a record on when you filled up on fuel, how many kilometers you got in a given tank, how much you spent and how much liters of fuel you are using per 100 kilometer. CarTrackr will enable you to improve your fuel economy and save money as well as conserve fuel. Fuel economy and conservation is becoming an important way to control your finances with the current high price

http://cartrackr.codeplex.com/


Codecampserver

This is the source code repository for CodeCampServer, a free, open source Code Camp management web application.

http://code.google.com/p/codecampserver/


Contact Manager

In this series of tutorials, Stephen Walther demonstartes how to use the ASP.NET MVC framework to build an entire Contact Manager application using unit tests, test-driven development, Ajax, and software design principles and patterns

http://www.asp.net/mvc/


FlickrXplorer

The project is an open source initiative to present users a fast photo explorer and search tool to browse millions of photos in flickr. The app is made with a bit of jQuery blend using Asp.net MVC and custom LINQ. The project also embodies a cloud computing scenario where the actual datastore lies millions of miles away invoked though simple API. The Application gives a nice starting point for Asp.net MVC, it also shows a strong integration of jQuery with Asp.net MVC as a client framework. It uses Athena (http://www.codeplex.com/LinqFlickr) LINQ to flickr API for fetching in and out data which is made on a custom LINQ provider toolkit made best for creating LINQ to Cloud APIs (http://www.codeplex.com/LinqExtender).

http://flickrxplorer.codeplex.com/


Kigg

KiGG is a Web 2.0 style social news web application developed in Microsoft supported technologies. The project uses ASP.NET MVC, Linq To SQL, MS Patterns & Practices Enterprise Library and Unity, jQuery, xUnit.net, Moq, HtmlAgilityPack, DotNetOpenId, and other 3rd party libraries

http://www.codeplex.com/Kigg


MVC StoreFront

I'm creating an ongoing series of webcasts and blog posts, documenting the building of an eCommerce storefront using ASP.NET MVC

http://blog.wekeroad.com/mvc-storefront/


Nerddinner

NerdDinner.com is an event management site so computer folks can meet and talk technology over a meal. It uses ASP.NET MVC along with jQuery, ASP.NET Ajax, Virtual Earth Javascript controls, and LINQ to SQL. It’s also a real site running at NerdDinner.com that you can use to schedule geek meet ups and nerd dinners in your neighborhood!

http://nerddinner.codeplex.com/


Oxite

Oxite is an open source, web standards compliant, blog engine built on ASP.NET MVC and LINQ To SQL. Oxite supports all the features we consider essential to a blog engine, including the MetaWebLog API (to allow you to use LiveWriter or similar tools to add/edit your posts), trackbacks, pingbacks, Sitemaps (for search engines), RSS and ATOM feeds (at the site, blog, tag and post level ... plus feeds of all new comments... great for the site owner), tags, integrated search, web based admin features (including editing posts, your site settings, etc.), email subscriptions for new comments, basic support to publish 'pages' (non-blog content) and more.

http://www.codeplex.com/oxite

If your hosting provider already has ASP.NET MVC 1.0 installed on the hosting server, deploying your MVC application is no different that deploying any ASP.NET Web application. However, if the hosting provider does not currently support ASP.NET MVC 1.0, you must upload the required MVC assemblies in the Bin folder of your deployed application.

After ASP.NET MVC is installed, the following assemblies are located in the global assembly cache (GAC) on your computer:

- System.Web.Mvc (the ASP.NET MVC assembly)
- System.Web.Routing (a .NET Framework assembly that is required by ASP.NET MVC)
- System.Web.Abstractions (a .NET Framework assembly that is required by ASP.NET MVC)

1. In Visual Studio, open the project that you want to deploy.
2. In Solution Explorer, expand the References node.
3. Select the following assemblies:
- System.Web.Mvc
- System.Web.Routing
- System.Web.Abstractions
4. In the Properties window, set Copy Local to True.
5. In Solution Explorer, right-click the project and click Publish.  The Publish Web dialog box is displayed.
6. In Target location (http:, ftp:, or disk path), browse to a local folder and click Open.
7. Select either Replace matching files with local copies or Delete all existing files prior to publish.
8. Under Copy, select one of the following, depending on your needs: Only files needed to run this application, All project files, or All files in the source project folder.
9. If your application contains files in the App_Data folder such as database files, select Include files from the App_Data folder.
10. Click Publish. All the files that are required in order to deploy the application are copied to the target folder.

11. Test your application by deploying the files to a staging server or virtual machine that does not have MVC installed. If you do not have access to a staging server or a virtual machine, you can uninstall MVC and then test the application locally.
12. Upload the application to the hosting provider.


ASP.NET MVC Hosting Provider

We recommend ASPHostCentral.com as your main ASP.NET MVC Hosting Partners simply because:

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This article is sourced from here.

With classic mode, an HTTP request would be executed as follows:



As you can see, things such as authentication are performed twice, only for ASP.NET requests. Protecting an image from being displayed using ASP.NET authentication would be impossible in the classic mode! Using integrated mode, any HTTP request can be processed using ASP.NET modules and handlers such as authentication, making ASP.NET a full member of the IIS request processing pipeline.

IIS 7.0 provides support both for this new integrated mode and for the classic IIS 6.0 mode. The first option allows you to configure IIS 7.0 from within your web.config (which is preconfigured for the ASP.NET MVC framework); the latter requires some server-side configuration. To check whether an application is running in integrated or classic mode, follow these steps:

/Products/All

/Products.aspx/All

/Products/All

/Products.aspx/All

using System.Web.Mvc;
using System.Web.Routing;

namespace ModifiedRouteExample
{
    public class MvcApplication : System.Web.HttpApplication
    {
        public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
        {
            routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");

            routes.MapRoute(
               "Default",                                      
             // Route name
              
               "{controller}.aspx/{action}/{id}",                    
            // URL with parameters
              
               new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = "" }
            // Parameter defaults
            );

        }

        protected void Application_Start()
        {
            RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);
        }
    }
}

routes.MapRoute(
    "Default",
    "{controller}.aspx/{action}/{id}",
    new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = "" }
);