MVC2: Validate PartialView before Form Submit of Page containing Partial View

Question

I am using asp.net mvc2 and having a basic Page that includes a Partial View within a form

<% using (Html.BeginForm())
   { %>
<% Html.RenderAction("partialViewActionName", "Controllername"); %>

<input type="submit" value="Weiter" />

<% } %>

When I submit the form, the httpPost Action of my Page is called, and AFTER that the httpPost Action of my Partial View is called

[HttpPost]
public virtual ActionResult PagePostMethod(myModel model)
{
    // here I should know about the validation of my partial View
    // If partialView.ModelState is valid then
    //   return View("success");
    // else return View(model)
}

[HttpPost]
public virtual ActionResult partialViewActionName(myModel model)
{
    ModelState.AddModelError("Error");
    return View(model);
}

But as I am doing the Validation in the httpPost Method of my Partial View (because I want to use my Partial View in several Places) I cant decide if my hole page is valid or not.

Has anyone an Idea how I could do this? Isn´t it a common task to have several partial Views in a page but have the information about validation in the page action methods?

Thanks very much for your help!!

Answer 1

Your partial view method will be called when the page is rendered, not when the page is posted. The only action that will be called when the post is done is the action specified in BeginForm. The validation will happen in the ModelBinder -- assuming you're using DataAnnotations for your model. Any part of your model that is represented by inputs in the partial view will be validated along with the rest the model during binding. If you are handling the validation manually, then you will need to validate all of the parts of the model in the action that is being invoked on the post.