Firing server object/web service from a client validation...

[arc]

I have a server object that performs zipcode validation based on zipcode
entered in the web form.
Ideally this should work as follows:
Once the zip code is entered in the edit box it should validate the
entry with this server object before moving to enter state in the next
dropdown field.

- What is the event by which we can do this for the edit box? (OnBlur doesnt
seem to capture the text though it fires up the server object)
- This works fine when the validation is performed at the server level but
user has to wait until the submit button is pressed, this is not feasible
here.

Thanks Much,
Arc

[Chris Jackson]

If you write client-side javascript, you can trap the OnChange event of the
<input type="text" /> that you want to validate, and then either do your own
custom validation, or else call the ASP.NET validation system. I have always
called the ASP.NET validators as a whole, and not individually, so you would
have to poke through the script to see if you can get at this individually
or if you need to call validation on everything (which may cause problems if
you have required field validators that you haven't get gotten to on the
page). What I typically do is client-side validation where I present all of
the problems at the end, and then present very descriptive error messages
that point them to the control that is incorrect, rather than checking as
they type. If you wanted to get super-fast responses, you could trap
onkeydown and check after every keystroke, but that seems like overkill to
me.

--
Chris Jackson
Software Engineer
Microsoft MVP - Windows Client
Windows XP Associate Expert
--
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Reply to the newsgroup for a faster response.
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"arc" <ar*@hotmail.co m> wrote in message
news:uN******** ******@TK2MSFTN GP11.phx.gbl...

I have a server object that performs zipcode validation based on zipcode
entered in the web form.
Ideally this should work as follows:
Once the zip code is entered in the edit box it should validate the
entry with this server object before moving to enter state in the next
dropdown field.

- What is the event by which we can do this for the edit box? (OnBlur
doesnt
seem to capture the text though it fires up the server object)
- This works fine when the validation is performed at the server level but
user has to wait until the submit button is pressed, this is not feasible
here.

Thanks Much,
Arc

[Peter Blum]

First, I notice that you cross posted. Please don't do that as we cannot
follow all the responses elsewhere and may be wasting our time replying when
you already have a satisfactory response from another newsgroup.

You can write a CustomValidator to do this work. Internally the
customvalidator (and all validators) hook up to the onchange event of a
textbox. If you intend to maintain this validation on the client-side, it
may be very inefficient as you would have to provide a javascript
representation of all zip codes. That could make for a huge page. In this
case, I would recommend posting back to the server to do the work. Another
suggestion is to simply validate the pattern is ##### or #####-####. You can
use a RegularExpressi onValidator to do this. Microsoft has even supplied a
regular expression for you in the property editor for the Expression
property.

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

"arc" <ar*@hotmail.co m> wrote in message
news:uN******** ******@TK2MSFTN GP11.phx.gbl...

I have a server object that performs zipcode validation based on zipcode
entered in the web form.
Ideally this should work as follows:
Once the zip code is entered in the edit box it should validate the
entry with this server object before moving to enter state in the next
dropdown field.

- What is the event by which we can do this for the edit box? (OnBlur doesnt seem to capture the text though it fires up the server object)
- This works fine when the validation is performed at the server level but
user has to wait until the submit button is pressed, this is not feasible
here.

Thanks Much,
Arc

[Steve Fulton]

Peter Blum wrote:

First, I notice that you cross posted. Please don't do that as we cannot
follow all the responses elsewhere and may be wasting our time replying when
you already have a satisfactory response from another newsgroup.

That is not a problem with cross-posting. Replies in any group will be
propagated to all groups. Multi-posting (identical, *separate* posts to
different newsgroups) suffers from this problem and is a strict no-no.
Cross-posting to an excessive number of unrelated groups is frowned upon.

--
Steve

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
-Albert Einstein