Eric Polerecky

Validating DataAnnotations

public static IList<String> GetClassLevelErrors(object instance){    return TypeDescriptor.GetAttributes(instance).OfType<ValidationAttribute>()        .Where(attribute => !attribute.IsValid(instance))        .Select(attribute => attribute.FormatErrorMessage(string.Empty))        .ToList();}

[TestMethod]public void TestMethod1(){    var prop = typeof (DataAnnotationsModelBinderSpike.Models.Contact).GetProperty("First");    var attrib = prop.GetCustomAttributes(true).Cast<RequiredAttribute>().FirstOrDefault();    Assert.IsNotNull(attrib);}

Tags: ASP.NET MVC, DataAnnotations, ModelBinders, TDD

Base Controller Class and TempData

Need:

To pass information to every view based on an environmental variable. The specific case I ran across this need is when you want to use the minified version of your JavaScript libraries in production and the human readable in dev/QA.

Solution:

• Create your own base controller class.
• Override either onactionexecuting or onactionexecuted.
• Populate TempData with the environment specific information.
• Change your controllers to inherit from your custom base controller
• Use that information in the view.

using System.Configuration;using System.Web.Mvc;

namespace BaseController.Controllers{    public class BaseController : Controller    {        protected override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext filterContext)        {

            filterContext.Controller.TempData["OnActionExecuting"] = "OnActionExecuting";            filterContext.Controller.TempData["js_dev"] = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["js_dev"];

            base.OnActionExecuting(filterContext);        }

        protected override void OnActionExecuted(ActionExecutedContext filterContext)        {

            filterContext.Controller.TempData["OnActionExecuted"] = "OnActionExecuted";            filterContext.Controller.TempData["js_prod"] = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["js_prod"];            base.OnActionExecuted(filterContext);        }    }}

Pros:

• I’ve found that I often have to create my own base controller class. Doing so for something this simple is a god starting point.

Cons:

Alternate Solutions:

• Use T4 templates to generate a const file based on environment.
• Put the information of each server in the machine.config

Final:

The solution is sound and a sample is attached but I am going to have to come back and flesh out this post a little more with details about the *.config/caching and other options.

Tags: ASP.NET MVC, mvc

Help! Looking for a CSS DSL!

Update: Today Less CSS for .NET, or just .Less,  was released. Its a port of the ruby LESS library and exactly what I was/am looking for. I updated my question on SO already.

—– old post ——

I posted this on stackoverflow.com already…..

I’ve been working on a really large project for almost 2 years and the client requirements keep changing. These changes, of course, effect everything and I would like to find a way to work with the CSS in a more dynamic fashion.

I assume I could get one of the ruby or python CSS DSLs running under ironRuby/Python but this client is very very particular about what software/frameworks are installed.

I have not found a CSS DSL where the base programming language is vb or c#.

reference: http://sandbox.pocoo.org/clevercss/ and http://nubyonrails.com/articles/dynamic-css

I guess another question is has anyone got either of these frameworks working under IronPython or IronRuby?

Tags: c#, CSS, dsl, ironpython, ironruby, vb.net

Unrecognized attribute ‘targetFramework’

Change the app pool to target the .NET 4.0 Framework…it defaults to 2.