unobtrusive validation not working with dynamic content

Question

I'm having problems trying to get the unobtrusive jquery validation to work with a partial view that is loaded dynamically through an AJAX call.

I've been spending days trying to get this code to work with no luck.

Here's the View:

@model MvcApplication2.Models.test

@using (Html.BeginForm())
{
 @Html.ValidationSummary(true);
 <div id="res"></div>
 <input id="submit" type="submit" value="submit" />
}

The Partial View:

@model MvcApplication2.Models.test

@Html.TextAreaFor(m => m.MyProperty);
@Html.ValidationMessageFor(m => m.MyProperty);

<script type="text/javascript" >
  $.validator.unobtrusive.parse(document);
</script>

The Model:

  public class test
  {
    [Required(ErrorMessage= "required field")]
    public int MyProperty { get; set; }
  }

The Controller:

    public ActionResult GetView()
    {
        return PartialView("Test");
    }

and finally, the javascript:

$(doument).ready(function () {
$.ajax({
    url: '/test/getview',
    success: function (res) {

        $("#res").html(res);
        $.validator.unobtrusive.parse($("#res"));
    }
});

$("#submit").click(function () {
    if ($("form").valid()) {
        alert('valid');
        return true;
    } else {
        alert('not valid');
        return false;
    }
});

The validation does not work. Even if I don't fill any information in the texbox, the submit event shows the alert ('valid').

However, if instead of loading dynamically the view, I use @Html.Partial("test", Model) to render the partial View in the main View (and I don't do the AJAX call), then the validation works just fine.

This is probably because if I load the content dynamically, the controls don't exist in the DOM yet. But I do a call to $.validator.unobtrusive.parse($("#res")); which should be enough to let the validator about the newly loaded controls...

Can anyone help ?

Answer 1

If you try to parse a form that is already parsed it won't update

What you could do when you add dynamic element to the form is either

1. You could remove the form's validation and re validate it like this:

   var form = $(formSelector)
       .removeData("validator") /* added by the raw jquery.validate plugin */
       .removeData("unobtrusiveValidation");  /* added by the jquery unobtrusive plugin*/
   
   $.validator.unobtrusive.parse(form);
   

2. Access the form's unobtrusiveValidation data using the jquery data method:

   $(form).data('unobtrusiveValidation')
   

   then access the rules collection and add the new elements attributes (which is somewhat complicated).

You can also check out this article on Applying unobtrusive jquery validation to dynamic content in ASP.Net MVC for a plugin used for adding dynamic elements to a form. This plugin uses the 2nd solution.

Answer 2

As an addition to Nadeem Khedr's answer....

If you've loaded a form in to your DOM dynamically and then call

jQuery.validator.unobtrusive.parse(form); 

(with the extra bits mentioned) and are then going to submit that form using ajax remember to call

$(form).valid()

which returns true or false (and runs the actual validation) before you submit your form.