What is jQuery Unobtrusive Validation?
Brad Wilson has a couple great articles on unobtrusive validation and unobtrusive ajax.
It is also shown very nicely in this Pluralsight video in the section on " AJAX and JavaScript".
Basically, it is simply Javascript validation that doesn't pollute your source code with its own validation code. This is done by making use of data-
attributes in HTML.
With the unobtrusive way:
- You don't have to call the validate() method.
- You specify requirements using data attributes (data-val, data-val-required, etc.)
Jquery Validate Example:
<input type="text" name="email" class="required"><script> $(function () { $("form").validate(); });</script>
Jquery Validate Unobtrusive Example:
<input type="text" name="email" data-val="true" data-val-required="This field is required."> <div class="validation-summary-valid" data-valmsg-summary="true"> <ul><li style="display:none"></li></ul></div>
For clarification, here is a more detailed example demonstrating Form Validation using jQuery Validation Unobtrusive.
Both use the following JavaScript with jQuery:
$("#commentForm").validate({ submitHandler: function(form) { // some other code // maybe disabling submit button // then: alert("This is a valid form!");// form.submit(); } });
The main differences between the two plugins are the attributes used for each approach.
jQuery Validation
Simply use the following attributes:
- Set required if required
- Set type for proper formatting (email, etc.)
- Set other attributes such as size (min length, etc.)
Here's the form...
<form id="commentForm"> <label for="form-name">Name (required, at least 2 characters)</label> <input id="form-name" type="text" name="form-name" class="form-control" minlength="2" required> <input type="submit" value="Submit"></form>
jQuery Validation Unobtrusive
The following data attributes are needed:
- data-msg-required="This is required."
- data-rule-required="true/false"
Here's the form...
<form id="commentForm"> <label for="form-x-name">Name (required, at least 2 characters)</label> <input id="form-x-name" type="text" name="name" minlength="2" class="form-control" data-msg-required="Name is required." data-rule-required="true"> <input type="submit" value="Submit"></form>
Based on either of these examples, if the form fields that are required have been filled, and they meet the additional attribute criteria, then a message will pop up notifying that all form fields are validated. Otherwise, there will be text near the offending form fields that indicates the error.
References: - jQuery Validation: https://jqueryvalidation.org/documentation/