How to get controller's ModelState in service for validation

Question

I am exactly at the situation where this person (Controller ModelState with ModelStateWrappper) is except that I am using Castle Windsor DI. I am trying to validate my model's business logic side in my service before I save the model pass it to the data store. if the validation fails I want to get the model state errors and display in my view. (I am following this article as a guide to implement validation from service: http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/older-versions/models-(data)/validating-with-a-service-layer-cs)

Below is my sample code,

//My controller code
        public class TimeEntryController : TempoBaseController
        {
            public TimeEntryController(TimeService service, UserService userService)
            {
                _service = service;
                _userService = userService;
            }
            [Authorize(Roles = "Worker")]
            public ActionResult Index() 
            {
            return View();
            }
            [AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)]
            public ActionResult Index(EntryLogDto entry)
            {
              if(_service.AddEntryLog(entry))
              {
                return ViewSuccess();
              }else
              {
                return ViewFailue();
              }
            }

        }

//My Service class
    public class TimeService : GenericService
    {
        public TimeService(IRepository repository, IValidationDictionary validationDictionary, UserManager<ApplicationUser>     userManager)
            : base(repository, validationDictionary, userManager)
        {
        }

        public bool AddEntryLog(EntryLogDto log)
        {
            if (!ValidateEntryLog(log))
              {
                //return false;

            }
            else
            {
                //insert entry into database and return true
            }
            }
        protected bool ValidateEntryLog(EntryLogDto log)
        {
            //Check if the entry overlaps with any other entries
            bool res = _repository.Find<EntryLogDto>(//my linq logic);
            if (res)
            {
              _validationDictionary.IsValid = true;
            }else
            {
            _validatonDictionary.AddError("Entry", "Entry Overlaps.");
              _validationDictionary.IsValid = false;
            }
            return _validationDictionary.IsValid;
        }
    }

//Validation class

    public class TempoValidation : IValidationDictionary
    {
        private ModelStateDictionary _modelState;
        public TempoValidation(ModelStateDictionary modelState) // Issue is how am I gona give it this as the ModelStateDictiona         ry is controller specific
        {
            _modelState = modelState;
        }

        public void AddError(string key, string error)
        {
            _modelState.AddModelError(key, error);

        }

        public bool IsValid
        {
            get { return _modelState.IsValid; }
        }
    }

//Global.asax castle compnonent registration method
                container
                .Register(Component
                            .For<Tempo.Model.Configuration.TempoDbContext>()
                            .LifestylePerWebRequest()
                            .DependsOn(new { connectionString }))
                .Register(Component
                            .For<DbRepositories.ITempoDataContextFactory>()
                            .AsFactory())
                .Register(Component
                            .For<IRepository>()
                            .ImplementedBy<Tempo.Repositories.EntityFrameworkRepository.Repository>())
                .Register(Component
                            .For<TimeService>().LifestyleTransient())

I am injecting IValidationDictionary in my service class where I set the model state depending on the validation result. Is there a way I can pass in the model state of the controller when I use it? I don't know how to approach this, I have many controllers and I don't know how I will/when will I pass the respective controller's model state (I would like to do that by DI if its possible )... I don't know if castle can create a separate instance of TempoValidation class for each controller??

Answer 1

I know that this is impossible to do this by default, but you can use Fluent Validation to achieve this.

Example:

ViewModel

 [Validator(typeof(VmSysTestValidator))]
    public class VmSysTestModel
    {
        public int Id { get; set; }
        [Required]
        public string FirstName { get; set; }
        [Required]
        public string LastName { get; set; }
    }

Fluent validation implementation :

 public class VmSysTestValidator : AbstractValidator<VmSysTestModel>
    {
        public VmSysTestValidator()
        {
            RuleFor(x => x.FirstName).NotNull().WithMessage("First name is required");
            RuleFor(x => x.LastName).NotNull().WithMessage("Last Name is required");
        }
    }

Controller or business logic side :

[HttpPost]
        public ActionResult TestPost(VmSysTestModel obj)
        {

            //Start Validation     From start to end you can call this code everywhere you want  , this will work like server side valdiatin
            //Instead of ModelState.IsValid you will call your fluent validator
            var testValidator = new VmSysTestValidator();
            var validationResult = testValidator.Validate(obj);
            if (validationResult.IsValid)
            {

            }
            else
            {

            }
            //End valdiation 
        }