Joe Stevens' BlogEverything .NET and C#

It’s quite common to use a JavaScript confirm dialog on a button press to ensure that the user wants to submit the page.  If you are using any of the ASP.NET validators that use client side validation you will find the confirm appears before the validation, whereas it would be better if the confirm box only appeared if the page was valid.

Luckily the framework supplies some JavaScript functions that can be used for validation.  Page_IsValid is a boolean indicating if the page is valid which can be used in client script.  This value is set when the JavaScript function Page_ClientValidate is executed.

For this example I have set CausesValidation to false on the button that will show the confirm dialog, as I will call the client side function myself.  If I don’t to this my validation will be called twice.  In the OnClientClick I then need to add some JavaScript to call Page_ClientValidate if the function exists, and then only show the confirm dialog if Page_IsValid is true:

<asp:LinkButton ID="btnSubmit"
                CausesValidation="false"
                OnClientClick="if (typeof(Page_ClientValidate) == 'function') { Page_ClientValidate(); if(Page_IsValid) { return confirm('You are sure?'); } };"
                runat="server"
                onclick="btnSubmit_Click">