Validate Modified Model Using Annotations in EntityFramwork and ASPNET - asp.net

Question

I have this class as a part of EF Model:
class Person {
public int Id { get; set; }
[MaxLength(100, ErrorMessage="Name cannot be more than 100 characters")]
public string Name { get; set; }
}
And I have this method in my controller:
public IActionResult ChangeName(int id, string name) {
var person = db.Persons.Find(id);
if(person == null) return NotFound();
person.Name = name;
db.SaveChanges();
return Json(new {result = "Saved Successfully"});
}
Is there any way to validate person after changing the Name property using the annotation MaxLength rather than manually check for it. Becuase sometimes I might have more than one validation and I don't want to examine each one of them. Also, I might change these parameters in the future (e.g. make the max length 200), and that means I have to change it everywhere else.
So is it possible?

Answer 1

Your method works as long as there is one validation error per property. Also, it's quite elaborate. You can use db.GetValidationErrors() to get the same result. One difference is that errors are collected in a collection per property name:
var errors = db.GetValidationErrors()
.SelectMany(devr => devr.ValidationErrors)
.GroupBy(ve => ve.PropertyName)
.ToDictionary(ve => ve.Key, ve => ve.Select(v => v.ErrorMessage));

Answer 2

Okay, I found a solution to my problem, I created a method that takes the model and checks for errors:
private IDictionary<string, string> ValidateModel(Person model)
{
var errors = new Dictionary<string, string>();
foreach (var property in model.GetType().GetProperties())
{
foreach (var attribute in property.GetCustomAttributes())
{
var validationAttribute = attribute as ValidationAttribute;
if(validationAttribute == null) continue;
var value = property.GetValue(model);
if (!validationAttribute.IsValid(value))
{
errors.Add(property.Name, validationAttribute.ErrorMessage);
}
}
}
return errors;
}
UPDATE:
As stated by #Gert Arnold, the method above returns only one validation per property. Below is the fixed version which returns a list of errors for each property
public static IDictionary<string, IList<string>> ValidateModel(Person model)
{
var errors = new Dictionary<string, IList<string>>();
foreach (var property in model.GetType().GetProperties())
{
foreach (var attribute in property.GetCustomAttributes())
{
var validationAttribute = attribute as ValidationAttribute;
if (validationAttribute == null) continue;
var value = property.GetValue(model);
if (validationAttribute.IsValid(value)) continue;
if (!errors.ContainsKey(property.Name))
errors[property.Name] = new List<string>();
errors[property.Name].Add(validationAttribute.ErrorMessage);
}
}
return errors;
}