Validation Controls in

ASP.NET
Prepared by,
Asst.prof. Dharmendrasinh Rathod
Parul Institute of Computer Application
Parul University
 Validation

 Validation server control is used to validate the data of an input

control.
 Validation controls validate the user input data to ensure that useless,
unauthenticated or contradictory data will not get stored.
 If the data does not pass validation, it will display an error message to
the user.
 Whenever we have an application that expects user input, then it
becomes important to ensure the validity of the data input by the user.
 We might have scenarios when some data is mandatory for the user to
enter. There are scenarios when the user data has to be in some
particular format example email ID. There could be scenarios when we
want the data to be in some range example date input.
 Types of Validation

 There are two ways we can perform validation:

 Client side validation

 Server side validation

 Client Side Validation

 Client side validation is works on users' browser.

 The validation will occur before the data gets posted back to
server.
 It is a good idea to have client side validation as the user gets to
know what needs to be changed immediately, i.e., no trips to
servers are made. So from the users' point of view, it gives him
fast response and from the developers' point of view, it saves
valuable resources of server.
 JavaScript is most widely used to perform client side validation.
From decades, developers have been using JavaScript for client
side validation. It is always a good idea to have knowledge of
JavaScript as it gives us full control over client side validation.
 Server Side Validation

 Server side validation occurs at server.

 The benefit of having server side validation is that if the
user somehow bypasses the client side validation
(accidentally or deliberately), then we can catch the problem
on the server side.
 So having server side validation provides more security and
ensures that no invalid data gets processed by the
application.
 Server side validation is done by writing our custom logic
for validating all the input.
 ASP.NET also provides us some controls which will
facilitate the server side validation and provides a
framework for the developers to do the same.
 Types of Validation Control in
ASP.NET
Control Description

RequiredFieldValidator Enables you to require a user to enter a value in a form field

Compulsorily.
RangeValidator Enables you to check whether a value falls between a certain
minimum and maximum value.
CompareValidator Enables you to compare a value against another value or
perform a data type check.
RegularExpressionValidator Enables you to compare a value against a regular expression.

CustomValidator Enables you to perform custom validation.

ValidationSummary Enables you to display a summary of all validation errors in a

page.
 RequiredFieldValidator
 RequiredFieldValidator control enables you to require a user to enter a value
into a form field before submitting the form.
 You must set two important properties when using the
RequiredFieldValdiator control:
ControlToValidate—The ID of the form field being validated.
Text—The error message displayed when validation
fails.
 By default, the RequiredFieldValidator checks for a nonempty string (spaces
don’t count).
 If you enter anything into the form field associated with the
RequiredFieldValidator, then the RequiredFieldValidator does not display
its validation error message.
 You can use the RequiredFieldValidator control’s InitialValue property to
specify a default value other than an empty string.
 RangeValidator
 The RangeValidator control enables you to check whether the value of a
form field falls between a certain minimum and maximum value.
 You must set five properties when using this control:
 ControlToValidate—The ID of the form field being validated.
 Text—The error message displayed when validation fails.
 MinimumValue—The minimum value of the validation range.
 MaximumValue—The maximum value of the validation range.
 Type—The type of comparison to perform. Possible values are String, Integer,
Double, Date, and Currency.
 Validation message is also displayed if you enter a value that is not a
number. If the value entered into the form field cannot be converted into the
data type represented by the RangeValidator control’s Type property, then
the error message is displayed.
 RangeValidator

 If you don’t enter any value into the age field and submit
the form, no error message is displayed.
 If you want to require a user to enter a value, you must
associate a RequiredFieldValidator with the form field.
 Don’t forget to set the Type property when using the
RangeValidator control.
 By default, the Type property has the value String, and the
RangeValidator performs a string comparison to determine
whether a values falls between the minimum and maximum
value.
 CompareValidator

 The CompareValidator control enables you to perform three different

types of validation tasks.
 You can use the CompareValidator to perform a data type check.
 In other words, you can use the control to determine whether a user
has entered the proper type of value into a form field, such as a date in
a birth date field.
 You also can use the CompareValidator to compare the value entered
into a form field against a fixed value.
 you can use the CompareValidator to compare the value of one form
field against another.
 For example, you use the CompareValidator to check whether the
value entered into the meeting start date is less than the value entered
into the meeting end date.
 CompareValidator

 The CompareValidator has six important properties:

 ControlToValidate—The ID of the form field being validated.
 Text—The error message displayed when validation fails.
 Type—The type of value being compared. Possible values are
String, Integer, Double, Date, and Currency
 Operator—The type of comparison to perform. Possible values
are DataTypeCheck, Equal, GreaterThan, GreaterThanEqual,
LessThan, LessThanEqual, and NotEqual.
 ValueToCompare—The fixed value against which to compare.
 ControlToCompare—The ID of a control against which to
compare.
RegularExpressionValidator

 The RegularExpressionValidator control enables you to

compare the value of a form field against a regular
expression. You can use a regular expression to represent
string patterns such as email addresses, Social Security
numbers, phone numbers, dates, currency amounts, and
product codes.

Character Meaning for Character in Expression

\w Any word character (Letter, Number or
Underscore)
\d Any digit
\D Any character that is not Digit
\s Any white space character like Tab or Space
\S Any non-white space character
 RegularExpressionValidator

 Just like the other validation controls, the

RegularExpressionValidator doesn't validate a form field
unless the form field contains a value. To make a form field
required, you must associate a RequiredFieldValidator
control with the form field.
Character Meaning for Character in Expression
\w {10} 10 word character (Letter, Number or Underscore)

\w {5,10} Word character between 5 to 10

\d {5,10) Any digits ranging from 5 to 10
[A-D] Any 1 alphabet between A to D
Any alphabet between A to D but the no. of alphabets
[A-Z]{5,15}
can be between 5 to 15.
Ex. 99-999999 (2 digits then hyphen and after that
\d{2}-\d{7,10}
digits between 7 to 10
 CustomValidator

 If none of the other validation controls perform the type of validation

that you need, you can always use the CustomValidator control.
 You can associate a custom validation function with the
CustomValidator control.
 The CustomValidator control has three important properties:
 ControlToValidate : The ID of the form field being validated.
 Text : The error message displayed when validation fails.
 ClientValidationFunction : The name of a client-side function used to perform
client-side validation.
 The CustomValidator also supports one event:
 ServerValidate : This event is raised when the CustomValidator performs
validation.
 CustomValidator

 You associate your custom validation function with the

CustomValidator control by handling the ServerValidate
event.
 The second parameter passed to the ServerValidate event
handler is an instance of the ServerValidateEventArgs class.
This class has two properties:
 Value : Represents the value of the form field being validated.
 IsValid : Represents whether validation fails or succeeds.
 ValidateEmptyText : Represents whether validation is performed
when the form field being validated does not contain a value.
 ValidationSummary

 The ValidationSummary control enables you to display a list of

all the validation errors in a page in one location.
 This control is particularly useful when working with large
forms. If a user enters the wrong value for a form field located
toward the end of the page, then the user might never see the
error message.
 If you use the ValidationSummary control, however, you can
always display a list of errors at the top of the form.
 You might have noticed that each of the validation controls
includes an ErrorMessage property. We have not been using the
ErrorMessage property to represent the validation error
message. Instead, we have used the Text property.
 ValidationSummary
 The distinction between the ErrorMessage and Text property is that any
message that you assign to the ErrorMessage property appears in the
ValidationSummary control, and any message that you assign to the
Text property appears in the body of the page.
 The ValidationSummary control supports the following properties:
 DisplayMode : Enables you to specify how the error messages are formatted.
Possible values are BulletList, List, and SingleParagraph.
 HeaderText : Enables you to display header text above the validation
summary.
 ShowMessageBox : Enables you to display a popup alert box.
 ShowSummary : Enables you to hide the validation summary in the page.
 If you set the ShowMessageBox property to the value true and the
ShowSummary propertyto the value False, then you can display the
validation summary only within a popup alert box.