Model Validation without the ValidationSummary?

Question

I have a LoginModel for my Login Action, but I'm wanting to use just HTML.

Example...

public class LoginModel
{
  [Required]
  public string Email { get;set; }
}

in my HTML, I have
<input type="text" value="" name="Email">

This is because I'm going to be storing my HTML in my database, problem I'm having is, how do I get model validation without using Html.ValidationSummary()?

I was hoping I could just do

<div class="validation-summary-errors"></div>

As this is what is in the HTML, but does not work..

Ideas?

You want MVC to parse the HTML from your DB, find the validation container, and put messages in it? That's not going to happen. — SLaks
Instead, you can store Razor views in your DB, and beware of the enormous security risk. — SLaks

Adam Tuliper - MSFT Adam Tuliper - MSFT · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-18T21:16:56

Regardless of where you store your HTML the validation is done on the client side. There are various posts on how to use the virtual path provider to store your views somewhere else (DB) and then validation should still work fine. I think I'm missing why it's not working for you though so I have to imagine you aren't using the path provider to find your views.

Edit

Seems you want to inject messages into a Div. This wont happen automaticaly unless you work some magic in the path provider. Use your own helper method in the view to avoid hacks or just use what's provided by default. If you really want to do it render your view in your controlllet and search for your Div pattern to replace. custom ValidationForMessage helper removing css element

Note Darin's method

var expression = ExpressionHelper.GetExpressionText(ex);
    var modelName = htmlHelper.ViewContext.ViewData.TemplateInfo.GetFullHtmlFieldName(expression);
    var modelState = htmlHelper.ViewData.ModelState[modelName];

without access to ViewContext in your controller you can only render your html for your View. However, somewhere in your view you need (as far as I can tell) a helper method to stick your error collection into ViewData.

Your Virtual Path Provider may have to inject this helper method into your view text so it is there for Razor to parse. Actually - duh. This may be much easier. Your provider may be able to just simply read your html from the database, find the div, and inject the @Html.ValidationSummary into that div. I believe this would work. Why not just put the validation summary in there though if its going to end up there in the end anyways (essentially)

Model Validation without the ValidationSummary?

1 Answers