How to Implement Remote Validation in ASP.Net MVC

Introduction

For some of our web applications we must validate the uniqueness of a field, for example when we create a user for the application then the user Id must be unique in order to provide login capability for the system. To do this we need to write code to make a remote server call to validate the field.

ASP.NET MVC provides a mechanism that can make a remote server call to validate the field without posting the entire form to the server. The "Remote" validation attribute is useful for that. This attribute is useful when we have a field that cannot be validated on the client side so we must validate it on to the server side.

Remote Attribute

The Remote attribute class uses the jQuery validation plug-in remote validator. With remote attribute, we need to pass a route name (to validate the text on the server side) or pass an action and controller name. This attribute enables a client-side validation and makes a call to the server when the actual validation is done.

For example, I want to create a customer registration form and it has a user id that must be unique within the database. I want to validate this user id using a remote attribute. The Following is the procedure to use a remote attribute in this case.

Step 1

Create a model for the customer and apply the report validation for the column user id.

public class Customer
{
public int CustomerId
{
get;
set;
}
public string Name
{
get;
set;
}
[RemoteAttribute("IsUserExists", "Home")]
public string UserId
{
get;
set;
}
}

Step 2

Create a method in the controller to check the validation. This controller's action method must return a JsonResult object (true or false) depending on the validation performed.

public class HomeController: Controller
{
public JsonResult IsUserExists(string userId)
{
return IsExist(userId) ? Json(true, JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet) : Json(false, JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet);
}
public bool IsExist(string userId)
{
// Write code to validate UserId weather is Userid already exists or not and base on return true and false.
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(userId)) return false;
else if (userId == "jignesh") return false;
else return true;
}
}

Output

Pass Additional parameter

We can also send additional parameters from the screen by setting the additional field property. In the following example I want “name” properties along with a “UserId” property, so I have set an additional field property to “name".

[RemoteAttribute("IsUserExists", "Home",AdditionalFields="Name")]
public string UserId { get; set; }

We can get multiple additional properties by passing property names separated by commas into the AdditionalFields property of the remote attribute.

[RemoteAttribute("IsUserExists", "Home", AdditionalFields = "Name,Address”)]
public string UserId { get; set; }

Customize error message

We can also customize the error message by passing the named parameter “ErrorMessage”. By default the message is “{property Name} is invalid”. Using this named property we can change the error message text.

[RemoteAttribute("IsUserExists", "Home", ErrorMessage = "This UserId is already in use.")]
public string UserId { get; set; }

I hope this helps!

7 Comments

Join the conversation! Your thoughts help the community grow.

Safvan AK6y ago
Can I pass Encrypted value instead of plain text ??
Jignesh Trivedi11y ago
Thank you all for reading and commenting....
Ayush Kumar11y ago
Thanks
Sibeesh Venu11y ago
Good one.
Manish Kumar Choudhary11y ago
Good one.
Nitin11y ago
good one
Santhakumar Munuswamy11y ago
Thanks for sharing