Hi everyone... From time to time we receive questions regarding validation and when validation fires within Dynamic Forms and Dynamic Registration. Please review some of these notes below and let me know if you have any questions:
Both Dynamic Forms and Dynamic Registration include features for 'Client Side Validation' and 'Server Side Validation'. Here are a few general rules on how these validations work/operate:
Client Side Validation:
- Can display validation error text (such as *) directly next to a field
- Work on most typical fields
- Support regular expressions, compare validators, and standard required field validators on the most common fields that ASP.NET Validation Controls support
- Always fire before server side validation takes place. If you have clients side validation enabled, and all validation passes for the client side validation, then server side validation will take place.
Server Side Validation:
- Supports other features such as validation for SQL Validation, field types not supported by ASP.NET validators such as checkbox, radio button, listbox, check box list, file upload, etc...
- Validation will fire AFTER client side validation occurs
- Validation does not include validation text directly next to the field (i.e. *)
- Supports extended features for setting focus to the first field upon error, changing the stylesheet for invalid fields, etc...
A few common questions:
- When client side validation is enabled, some of my fields are not validated... Why?
Answer: Client side validation Will always fire before server side validation... This means that if your client side validation is enabled and validation is missing on a field, then you will not see the server side validation pop up and notify the user. One all client side validation has passed then server side validation would occur.
- Whats the best way to debug SQL Validation?
Answer: The best way to debug SQL Validation is to run the form within debug mode. If you enable debug mode and submit the form the system should spit out the exact SQL that is being generated.
Let me know if you have further comments... We are working to create more custom ASP.NET validation routine/controls that will support client side validation instead of server side validation so hopefully these will be released in new versions.
Thanks,
Chad