Question

I will keep this as short as possble but its wrecking my head. I have a user control with a label and a field. I add the user control dynamically to a page at run time. There could be many user controls which are built dynamically from data I get from the data base. The data describes the label name and if the text box should be completed.. ie is it required. I have a submit on the main page which has a validation group.All the validators on the user controls have the same validation group. So far so good I hope.

The user control has a RequiredFieldValidator for the text box and looks all like this. The validator is enabled by default.

<asp:TextBox ID="dfControl" runat="server" Text="" ToolTip="ucsAlphanumericEntryDC" Width="95%" CausesValidation="true"/>
<asp:RequiredFieldValidator ID="rfvContol" runat="server" ErrorMessage="Value is required" EnableClientScript="true" 
    ValidationGroup="ValidateContols" ControlToValidate="dfControl" Display="Dynamic" Enabled="true"></asp:RequiredFieldValidator>

When I dynamically load the control I check a parameter to tell me if the field is required or not. The paramater is from the database which represents the control that I am about to draw. If the Field NOT a required field I disable the validation in the page_preRender.. also tried it in load.

       if (!DisplayRequired)
        {
            rfvContol.EnableClientScript = false;
            rfvContol.Enabled = false;
            dfControl.CausesValidation = false;
        }

So far so good. This all works on the client side validation for only the user controls with the Display Required set to true, leaving the Validator enabled.

however on posting page from a submit button which I have wired to the same validation group as the user controls, I check the IsValid on the submit and if its false I dont save anything. But when the page re-renders on the client.. I have error messages on all the user controls, saying that they are required… even though I disabled some of them that where not required. the View state is default on the control which I assume to be on.

I also tried not redrawing the controls with the validators, by enclosing the code in a if(!IsPostBack)

Has anyone any idea’s why the validators fire when they are disabled on the first page load but dont get disabled on the postback.

thanks Mick

Answer 1

Try either setting Visible = false from the server, this works for me. Or you can also use the client-side ValidatorEnable(valid, false); to disable the validator.

HTH.