Question

I’m working on an application that has a large number of inputs for certain types (50 money inputs, 30 date inputs etc).

I have been creating an CompareValidator for each one to make sure users are putting in the correct information but I am curious if there is an easier way to create the validation once and apply it to all desired inputs?

Writing out 80 validators that do basically the same thing seems like a waste. Am I missing something that already does this in .NET or are there anything out there that can make validation easier?

Note: All validation needs to be done on both the client AND server side. I’ve read a little about ASP.NET MVC validation but unfortunately that won’t be an option here.

Answer 1

You might want to give the CustomValidator control a look. According to the MSDN document

It is possible to use a
CustomValidator control without
setting the ControlToValidate
property. This is commonly done when
you are validating multiple input
controls or validating input controls
that cannot be used with validation
controls, such as the CheckBox
control. In this case, the Value
property of the arguments parameter
passed to the event handler for the
ServerValidate event and to the
client-side validation function always
contains an empty string (“”).
However, these validation functions
are still called, where appropriate,
to determine validity on both the
server and the client. To access the
value to validate, you must
programmatically reference the input
control you want to validate and then
retrieve the value from the
appropriate property. For example, to
validate a CheckBox control on the
server, do not set the
ControlToValidate property of the
validation control and use the
following code for the handler for the
ServerValidate event.