ASP.NET validation

[Neil Zanella]

Hello,

I would like to know whether there is a way to validate an ASP.NET page
prior to it being processed by the server. Basically, I am assuming that
there is an ASP.NET standard (possibly an open one) somewhere out there
which specifies ASP.NET as an XML application. So I thought there would
be a free validation service somewhere on the web just as there is for
other XML applications. If anyone knows of such a validator or whether
an open standard for ASP.NET indeed exists then please let me know.

Thank you for your replies,

Neil

[B. Comrie]

there are validation controls that come with Visual Studio, these create
client side script to validate form data before it is sent to the server.

B Comrie
http://www.codewidets.com

"Neil Zanella" <nz******@cs.mun.ca> wrote in message
news:b6**************************@posting.google.c om...

Hello,

I would like to know whether there is a way to validate an ASP.NET page
prior to it being processed by the server. Basically, I am assuming that
there is an ASP.NET standard (possibly an open one) somewhere out there
which specifies ASP.NET as an XML application. So I thought there would
be a free validation service somewhere on the web just as there is for
other XML applications. If anyone knows of such a validator or whether
an open standard for ASP.NET indeed exists then please let me know.

Thank you for your replies,

Neil

[nzanella]

I guess there is no other way to validate ASP.NET code than to use
Visual Studio. I have been using Web Matrix but I am rather annoyed
at the fact that whenever I open a hand coded .aspx file in Web Matrix
it reformats all of my code. Is there a way to avoid this, or an IDE or
user interface which has validating service for ASP.NET but does
not modify all the indents and all in your code?

Thanks,

Neil

[Peter Blum]

Neil,

There is some confusion here. You can use any ASP.NET web control you want
in WebMatrix. All of the Validators should already be in its toolbox, ready
to use. They provide client-side validation using javascript. They have many
limitations, such as their scripts were written for DHTML browsers (IE and
IE/Mac). All other browsers will still use their server-side validation
features.
I wrote a far better solution to validation: "Professional Validation And
More" (http://www.peterblum.com/vam/home.aspx). It includes so many more
rules (22 validators vs 5 in Microsofts) and ways to get the user's
attention (like changing the color of the field with the error). It's
client-side validation works on IE, IE/Mac, Netscape 7+, Mozilla, FireFox,
Opera 7, and Safari. I designed it to address the requests users have of the
existing validators that force them to write custom code and invent hacks.

As for the reformatting issue of Visual Studio.net:
1. You can stay with WebMatrix although I recommend for writing actual code,
VS.NET's compiler and debugger are essential tools for real code
development.
2. Microsoft heard our complaints about its reformatting issues and will no
longer do that in VS.NET 2005 (coming later this year).

--- Peter Blum
www.PeterBlum.com
Email: PL****@PeterBlum.com
Creator of "Professional Validation And More" at
http://www.peterblum.com/vam/home.aspx

<nz******@cs.mun.ca> wrote in message
news:11**********************@c13g2000cwb.googlegr oups.com...

I guess there is no other way to validate ASP.NET code than to use
Visual Studio. I have been using Web Matrix but I am rather annoyed
at the fact that whenever I open a hand coded .aspx file in Web Matrix
it reformats all of my code. Is there a way to avoid this, or an IDE or
user interface which has validating service for ASP.NET but does
not modify all the indents and all in your code?

Thanks,

Neil

[nzanella]

Thank you for your reply. It is nice to know that
the automatic formatting is going to be gone
in VS .NET 2005 although I'd still like to use
my text editor of choice (gvim from www.vim.org)
because you can code much faster with it once you
learn how to use it.

Anyways, I think there was some misunderstanding
in the replies I received with regards to what
I meant by "validation". When people write decent
web pages, they validate them by having a validator
program such as the one found at http://validator.w3.org/
download the page and ispect it for W3C HTML compliance.

My complaint with ASP.NET is that MS seems
to not care about open HTML standards and
even outputs garbage attributes tags from
its ASP controls in order to achieve dirty hacks.
I guess this is by far the single most annoying
thing about ASP.NET: lack of W3C compliance.

Regards,

Neil

[nzanella]

Thank you for your reply. It is nice to know that
the automatic formatting is going to be gone
in VS .NET 2005 although I'd still like to use
my text editor of choice (gvim from www.vim.org)
because you can code much faster with it once you
learn how to use it.

Anyways, I think there was some misunderstanding
in the replies I received with regards to what
I meant by "validation". When people write decent
web pages, they validate them by having a validator
program such as the one found at http://validator.w3.org/
download the page and ispect it for W3C HTML compliance.

My complaint with ASP.NET is that MS seems
to not care about open HTML standards and
even outputs garbage attributes tags from
its ASP controls in order to achieve dirty hacks.
I guess this is by far the single most annoying
thing about ASP.NET: lack of W3C compliance.

Regards,

Neil

[Peter Blum]

I'm glad that you corrected our confusion because there is more coming in
ASP.NET 2.0/VS.NET 2005: Standards compliant HTML generation. In fact, it
will be XHTML compliant. Please use the msdn.microsoft.com site to locate
various articles on "Whidbey" that discuss its extensive improvements.

--- Peter Blum
www.PeterBlum.com
Email: PL****@PeterBlum.com
Creator of "Professional Validation And More" at
http://www.peterblum.com/vam/home.aspx

<nz******@cs.mun.ca> wrote in message
news:11*********************@f14g2000cwb.googlegro ups.com...

Thank you for your reply. It is nice to know that
the automatic formatting is going to be gone
in VS .NET 2005 although I'd still like to use
my text editor of choice (gvim from www.vim.org)
because you can code much faster with it once you
learn how to use it.

Anyways, I think there was some misunderstanding
in the replies I received with regards to what
I meant by "validation". When people write decent
web pages, they validate them by having a validator
program such as the one found at http://validator.w3.org/
download the page and ispect it for W3C HTML compliance.

My complaint with ASP.NET is that MS seems
to not care about open HTML standards and
even outputs garbage attributes tags from
its ASP controls in order to achieve dirty hacks.
I guess this is by far the single most annoying
thing about ASP.NET: lack of W3C compliance.

Regards,

Neil