Validation of a Dropdown which property comes from model but created from a RenderAction

Question

I have the following Address ViewModel:

public class AddressViewModel
{
    [StringLength(20, MinimumLength = 2, ErrorMessage = "Country name is too short")]
    public String Country { get; set; }

    public String City { get; set; }
    public String Street { get; set; }
    public String Number { get; set; }
    public String ApartmentBuilding { get; set; }
    public String Sector { get; set; }
}

And the view that renders it:

<div class="control-group offset2 span6">
    @Html.LabelFor(m => m.Country)
    <div class="controls">
        @{
            var countryCtrlName = Html.ViewContext.ViewData.TemplateInfo.GetFullHtmlFieldName("Country");
            Html.RenderAction("List", "Country", new { ControlName = countryCtrlName });
        }
        @Html.ValidationMessageFor(m => m.Country)
    </div>
</div>

Html.RenderAction("List") calls a controller method that gets all countries from the database and renders and renders a partial with the dropdown, here's the view:

@model IEnumerable<SelectListItem>
@{var controlName = (string)ViewBag.ControlName;}
@Html.DropDownList(controlName, Model, new {@class = ViewBag.CssClass})

Even though my DropdownList control is rendered with the correct name and thus mapped to the correct ViewModel upon POST, the input control isn't decorated with the necessary data-val attributes to enable client-side validation (I believe this is because the model for the partial is IEnumerable instead of the the string property that holds the country name.

The address view model is used through my application as a nested property on many views. Any ideas on how to make it validate?

Edit: updated ViewModel based on @Robert's answer:

public class AddressViewModel { [StringLength(20, MinimumLength = 2, ErrorMessage = "Country name is too short")] public String Country { get; set; }

public String City { get; set; }
public String Street { get; set; }
public String Number { get; set; }
public String ApartmentBuilding { get; set; }
public String Sector { get; set; }

public IEnumerable<CountryViewModel> CountryList {get; set;}

//Constructor to pass the list of countries
public AddressViewModel(IEnumerable<CountryViewModel> countries)
{
    this.CountryList = countries;
}

}

I'm not familiar with KDropDownList. Google tells me it's part of Keyoti.Search. Is that correct? — Ann L.
KDropDownList is an extension I made that decorates the dropdown with some additional classes. It's the same as calling Html.DropDownListFor (I updated the code anyway for readability) — amhed

Robert Robert · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-06T21:10:06

Have you tried making a CountryModel and have a separate controller that deals with your dropdown list. have the controller return a partial view that you can put on any page you want. Have one property on the CountryModel with an IEnumerable?

Address View:

@model AddressModel

@Html.Partial("nameOfPartialView", CountryModel)

Model:

public class CountryModel
{
    public IEnumerable<Countries> Countries { get; set; }
}

Controller:

public ActionResult Countries()
{
    var countries = //get the list from the database
    return PartialView(countries);
}

Partial View with the countries DropDownList:

@model CountryModel
@{var controlName = (string)ViewBag.ControlName;}
@Html.DropDownListFor(Model => Model.Countries)

Controller that accepts the country:

public ActionResult GetCountry(int CountryId)
{
     //do something with the selected country
}

Validation of a Dropdown which property comes from model but created from a RenderAction

2 Answers