Question

I’m trying to get WPF validation to work within the MVVM pattern.

In my View, I can validate a TextBox like this which gets handled by the code-behind method “HandleError”, which works fine:

<TextBox Width="200"
         Validation.Error="HandleError">
    <TextBox.Text>
        <Binding Path="FirstName"
             NotifyOnValidationError="True"
             Mode="TwoWay">
            <Binding.ValidationRules>
                <validators:DataTypeLineIsValid/>
            </Binding.ValidationRules>
        </Binding>
    </TextBox.Text>
</TextBox>

However, I would like to handle the validation in my ViewModel via a DelegateCommand but when I try it with the following code, I get the explicit error “‘{Binding HandleErrorCommand}’ is not a valid event handler method name. Only instance methods on the generated or code-behind class are valid.“

Are there any workaround for this so that we can handle validations within a MVVM pattern?

View:

<TextBox Width="200"
         Validation.Error="{Binding HandleErrorCommand}">
    <TextBox.Text>
        <Binding Path="FirstName"
             NotifyOnValidationError="True"
             Mode="TwoWay">
            <Binding.ValidationRules>
                <validators:DataTypeLineIsValid/>
            </Binding.ValidationRules>
        </Binding>
    </TextBox.Text>
</TextBox>

ViewModel:

#region DelegateCommand: HandleError
private DelegateCommand handleErrorCommand;

public ICommand HandleErrorCommand
{
    get
    {
        if (handleErrorCommand == null)
        {
            handleErrorCommand = new DelegateCommand(HandleError, CanHandleError);
        }
        return handleErrorCommand;
    }
}

private void HandleError()
{
    MessageBox.Show("in view model");
}

private bool CanHandleError()
{
    return true;
}
#endregion

Answer 1

I don’t know if this will help you, but I’ll offer it all the same.

Also, I’m using Silverlight, not WPF.

I don’t specify any validation in my Views, neither in the code behind nor the xaml. My View has only data bindings to properties on the ViewModel.

All my error checking/validation is handled by the ViewModel. When I encounter an error, I set a ErrorMessage property, which is bound to the view as well. The ErrorMessage textblock (in the view) has a value converter which hides it if the error is null or empty.

Doing things this way makes it easy to unit test input validation.