Remote validation doesn't work when property to validate is inside a modal Bootstrap

Question

I'm using ASP.NET MVC3.
When an user create an account, I need the chosen nickname be unique, so I use the Remote DataAnnotation like this :

public class UserModel
{
    [Required]
    [Remote("CheckNickname", "Validation", ErrorMessage = "This nickname is already used")]
    public string Nickname { get; set; }

    // ...
}

I used it in a strongly-typed view, via @Html.TextBoxFor(m => m.Nickname) and it perfeclty works.

However, I created another model with the exact same property.

public class MyOtherModel
{
    // ...

    [Required]
    [Remote("CheckNickname", "Validation", ErrorMessage = "This nickname is already used")]
    public string Nickname { get; set; }
}

I used this MyOtherModel.Nickname on a strongly-typed view via :
@Html.TextBoxFor(m => m.MyOtherModel.Nickname) However, in this case only, the data passed to my CheckNickame() method is always null.

There are only two differences :

• In the second case, the property I want to remotely validate is contained in another model (is it a problem ? I don't think so...)
• In the second case, the property is displayed inside a modal bootstrap (is it a problem ?)

For information, this is what my CheckNickname() looks like :

public JsonResult CheckNickname(string nickname)
{
    UserDAL userDAL = new UserDAL();
    bool userIsAvailable = !userDAL.IsUserAlreadyInUse(nickname);

    return Json(userIsAvailable, JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet);
}

As I wrote it before, in the second case only, the parameter nickname is always null whereas it works as expected in the first case.

Is anyone knows why ?
Any help is appreciated.

---

UPDATE :
I created this method :

public JsonResult CheckNickname2([Bind(Prefix = "MyOtherModel")]string nickname)
{
    UserDAL userDAL = new UserDAL();
    bool userIsAvailable = !userDAL.IsUserAlreadyInUse(nickname);

    return Json(userIsAvailable, JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet);
}

The call is now :
http://mysite/Validation/CheckNickname2?MyOtherModel.Nickname=Alex
but if I put a breakpoint on CheckNickname2, the nickname paremeter is still null !

However, the call on the working validaton method is :
http://mysite/Validation/CheckNickname?Nickname=Alex
and this one works...

---

SOLUTION:
Ok, solved by changing [Bind(Prefix = "MyOtherModel")] to [Bind(Prefix = "MyOtherModel.Nickname")] as suggested by Stephen Muecke

Answer 1

In your second example, the html generated will be name="MyOtherModel.Nickname" so the key/value pair posted back will be MyOtherModel.Nickname:yourValue. Change the controller method to

public JsonResult CheckNickname([Bind(Prefix="MyOtherModel.Nickname")]string nickname)

which will effectively strip the prefix and bind correctly to parameter nickname

Note also that the modal usage may be a problem if this is adding dynamic content after the initial page has been rendered (in which case you need to re-parse the validator)