Question

When testing my controller’s actions the ModelState is always valid.

public class Product
{
    public int Id { get; set; }

    [Required]
    [StringLength(10)]
    public string Name { get; set; }

    [Required]
    public string Description { get; set; }

    [Required]
    public decimal Price { get; set; }
}

And my controller.

public class ProductController : Controller
{
      [HttpPost]
      public ActionResult Create(Product product)
      {
            if (ModelState.IsValid)
            {
                   // Do some creating logic...
                   return RedirectToAction("Display");
            }

             return View(product);              
      }
 }

And test:

[Test]
public TestInvalidProduct()
{
     var product = new Product();
     var controller = new ProductController();
     controller.Create(product);
     //controller.ModelState.IsValid == true
}

Why the modelState is valid when the product doesn’t have a name, Description and price?

Answer 1

Validation happens when the posted data is bound to the view model. The view model is then passed into the controller. You are skipping part 1 and passing a view model straight into a controller.

You can manually validate a view model using

System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations.Validator.TryValidateObject()