Using Fluent Validation with WPF - Dead Simple

UserValidator.cs

using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
using FluentValidation;
using WpfFluentValidationExample.ViewModels;

namespace WpfFluentValidationExample.Lib
{
    public class UserValidator : AbstractValidator<UserViewModel>
    {
        public UserValidator()
        {
            RuleFor(user => user.Name)
                .NotEmpty()
                .WithMessage("Please Specify a Name.");

            RuleFor(user => user.Email)
                .EmailAddress()
                .WithMessage("Please Specify a Valid E-Mail Address");

            RuleFor(user => user.Zip)
                .Must(BeAValidZip)
                .WithMessage("Please Enter a Valid Zip Code");

        }

        private static bool BeAValidZip(string zip)
        {
            if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(zip))
            {
                var regex = new Regex(@"\d{5}");
                return regex.IsMatch(zip);
            }
            return false;
        }
    }
}

UserView.xaml

<Window
        xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
        xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
        xmlns:viewModels="clr-namespace:WpfFluentValidationExample.ViewModels" x:Class="WpfFluentValidationExample.Views.UserView"
        Title="UserView" Height="300" MinWidth="500">
    <Window.DataContext>
        <viewModels:UserViewModel/>
    </Window.DataContext>
    <StackPanel>
        <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">
            <Label Content="Name" Margin="10"/>
            <TextBox Text="{Binding Name, UpdateSourceTrigger=PropertyChanged, ValidatesOnDataErrors=True}" Width="200" Margin="10">
                <Validation.ErrorTemplate>
                    <ControlTemplate>
                        <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">
                            <!-- Placeholder for the TextBox itself -->
                            <AdornedElementPlaceholder x:Name="textBox"/>
                            <TextBlock Margin="10" Text="{Binding [0].ErrorContent}" Foreground="Red"/>
                        </StackPanel>
                    </ControlTemplate>
                </Validation.ErrorTemplate>
            </TextBox>
        </StackPanel>
        <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">
            <Label Content="E-Mail" Margin="10"/>
            <TextBox Text="{Binding Email, UpdateSourceTrigger=PropertyChanged, ValidatesOnDataErrors=True}" Width="200" Margin="10">
                <Validation.ErrorTemplate>
                    <ControlTemplate>
                        <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">
                            <!-- Placeholder for the TextBox itself -->
                            <AdornedElementPlaceholder x:Name="textBox"/>
                            <TextBlock Margin="10" Text="{Binding [0].ErrorContent}" Foreground="Red"/>
                        </StackPanel>
                    </ControlTemplate>
                </Validation.ErrorTemplate>
            </TextBox>
        </StackPanel>
        <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">
            <Label Content="Zip" Margin="10"/>
            <TextBox Text="{Binding Zip, UpdateSourceTrigger=PropertyChanged, ValidatesOnDataErrors=True}" Width="200" Margin="10">
                <Validation.ErrorTemplate>
                    <ControlTemplate>
                        <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">
                            <!-- Placeholder for the TextBox itself -->
                            <AdornedElementPlaceholder x:Name="textBox"/>
                            <TextBlock Margin="10" Text="{Binding [0].ErrorContent}" Foreground="Red"/>
                        </StackPanel>
                    </ControlTemplate>
                </Validation.ErrorTemplate>
            </TextBox>
        </StackPanel>
        <Button Margin="10">Submit</Button>
    </StackPanel>
</Window>

UserView.xaml.cs

using System.Windows;
using WpfFluentValidationExample.ViewModels;

namespace WpfFluentValidationExample.Views
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Interaction logic for UserView.xaml
    /// </summary>
    public partial class UserView : Window
    {
        public UserView()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
            DataContext = new UserViewModel();
        }
    }
}

UserViewModel.cs

using System;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Linq;
using WpfFluentValidationExample.Lib;

namespace WpfFluentValidationExample.ViewModels
{
    public class UserViewModel : INotifyPropertyChanged, IDataErrorInfo
    {
        private readonly UserValidator _userValidator;
        private string _zip;
        private string _email;
        private string _name;

        public UserViewModel()
        {
            _userValidator = new UserValidator();
        }

        public string Name
        {
            get { return _name; }
            set
            {
                _name = value;
                OnPropertyChanged("Name");
            }
        }

        public string Email
        {
            get { return _email; }
            set
            {
                _email = value;
                OnPropertyChanged("Email");
            }
        }

        public string Zip
        {
            get { return _zip; }
            set
            {
                _zip = value;
                OnPropertyChanged("Zip");
            }
        }

        public string this[string columnName]
        {
            get
            {
                var firstOrDefault = _userValidator.Validate(this).Errors.FirstOrDefault(lol => lol.PropertyName == columnName);
                if (firstOrDefault != null)
                    return _userValidator != null ? firstOrDefault.ErrorMessage : "";
                return "";
            }
        }

        public string Error
        {
            get
            {
                if (_userValidator != null)
                {
                    var results = _userValidator.Validate(this);
                    if (results != null && results.Errors.Any())
                    {
                        var errors = string.Join(Environment.NewLine, results.Errors.Select(x => x.ErrorMessage).ToArray());
                        return errors;
                    }
                }
                return string.Empty;
            }
        }

        public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;

        protected virtual void OnPropertyChanged(string propertyName)
        {
            PropertyChangedEventHandler handler = PropertyChanged;
            if (handler != null) handler(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(propertyName));
        }
    }
}

Thank you for excellent example!

That's what I call Life Saver!! Thank you very much!

question: In UserViewModel.cs ln54, if I change the code to this:

_userValidator.Validate(this, options => options.IncludeProperties(columnName));

it will only check single rule from what I understood, will it be "faster"?

Wow. I totally forgot that I wrote this gist.

@mrNo0b - I'm not sure. I looked through the fluentvalidation documentation and I didn't find anything related to the performance implications of using the options.IncludeProperties(...) option. My guess would be that would improve performance, but I have no evidence to support it.

What if I wanna check if my name is unique among all the usernames present in my database.

How would you integrate this rule. Let's suppose I'm working with EF.

@moh-a-med Making some assumptions here:

• Assuming that you're using EF
• Assuming that you're using the built in UserManager

The process would be to inject in the UserManager and then create a rule with the .Must(...) method. You would look up a user by username. If no user is returned, then the username is unique.

what should i consider if am going to use this with combox or datepicker ?

DatePicker should be pretty straightforward. ComboBox may be a bit of a pain because of it doesn't seamlessly integrate with the MVVM pattern. I would say try it and see what problems you run into.

Is there a reason why you use a int for indexing even though you defined a overload which takes a column name?
Additionally, could it be that you have copy paste error, because all ErrorTemplates use [0] not [0],[1],[2], ...?