ModelState.IsValid vs IValidateableObject in MVC3

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so according to Gu IValidatableObject.Validate() should get called when a controller validates it's model (i.e. before ModelState.IsValid) however simply making the model implement IValidatableObject doesn't seem to work, because Validate(..) doesn't get called.

Anyone know if there is something else I have to wire up to get this to work?

EDIT:

Here is the code as requested.

public class LoginModel : IValidatableObject
{
    [Required]
    [Description("Email Address")]
    public string Email { get; set; }

    [Required]
    [Description("Password")]
    [DataType(DataType.Password)]
    public string Password { get; set; }

    [DisplayName("Remember Me")]
    public bool RememberMe { get; set; }

    public int UserPk { get; set; }

    public IEnumerable<ValidationResult> Validate(ValidationContext validationContext)
    {
        var result = DataContext.Fetch( db => {

            var user = db.Users.FirstOrDefault(u => u.Email == Email);

            if (user == null) return new ValidationResult("That email address doesn't exist."); 
            if (user.Password != User.CreateHash(Password, user.Salt)) return new ValidationResult("The password supplied is incorrect.");

            UserPk = user.UserPk;
            return null;
        });

        return new List<ValidationResult>(){ result };
    }
}

The action. ( I don't do anything special in the Controller...)

[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Login(LoginModel model)
{
    if (ModelState.IsValid)
    {
        FormsAuthentication.SetAuthCookie(model.Email, model.RememberMe);
        return Redirect(Request.UrlReferrer.AbsolutePath);
    }

    if (ControllerContext.IsChildAction || Request.IsAjaxRequest())
        return View("LoginForm", model);

    return View(model);
}

I set a break point on the first line of LoginModel.Validate() and it doesn't seem to get hit.

2 Answers

Validation using the DefaultModelBinder is a two stage process. First, Data Annotations are validated. Then (and only if the data annotations validation resulted in zero errors), IValidatableObject.Validate() is called. This all takes place automatically when your post action has a viewmodel parameter. ModelState.IsValid doesn't do anything as such. Rather it just reports whether any item in the ModelState collection has non-empty ModelErrorCollection.

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