Client-side validation against an object in ASP.Net-MVC3?

Question

I have ah HTML5 form with an action defined as follows:

@using (Html.BeginForm("SearchAction", "ResultsController"))

The form takes in two text fields:

<input type="text" name="txtSearchTerm" id="txtSearchTerm" class="frontPageInput" placeholder="Begin your search..." required />          
<input type="text" name="txtGeoLocation" id="txtGeoLocation"  class="frontPageInput" required />          

The txtGeoLocation field is an autocomplete field that is fed from a cached object, fed through the controller and by a model repository class through the following jQuery code:

<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">
    $(function () {
        $("#txtGeoLocation").autocomplete(txtGeoLocation, {
            source: function (request, response) {
                $.ajax({
                    url: "/home/FindLocations", type: "POST",
                    dataType: "json",
                    selectFirst: true,
                    autoFill: true,
                    mustMatch: true,
                    data: { searchText: request.term, maxResults: 10 },
                    success: function (data) {
                        response($.map(data, function (item) {
                            return { label: item.GeoDisplay, value: item.GeoDisplay, id: item.GeoID }
                        }))
                    }
                })
            },
            select: function (event, ui) {
                alert(ui.item ? ("You picked '" + ui.item.label + "' with an ID of " + ui.item.id)
                    : "Nothing selected, input was " + this.value);
                document.getElementById("hidLocation").value = ui.item.id;
            }
        });

    });

There's an alert there for debugging. When clicking on the text that drops down, this alert fires, however it does not fire if you type in the whole word and hit submit.

I would like to first, validate the text in the geo text box on the client side, to ensure that it is a value contained in the collection, of not, have the text box in red, communicate that.

Thanks.

Answer 1

You can use jquery remote validation using the [Remote()] attribute to validate the value is in the list. You will have to do the same check on the server side when you post back as well.