Enterprise Library 5 Validation Type Safe?

Question

I recently discovered the Enterprise Validation Library and am using it to validate my app.config file. I mostly have strings which were simple to apply validation to. I also have some booleans for example:

    class Options
{
    public bool IsRed { get; set; }
    public bool IsBlue { get; set; }
}

and then inside my app.config:

    <!--Options-->
<add key ="IsRed" value="true"/>
<add key ="IsBlue" value="Maybe"/>

Is it possible to apply validation rules to check that make sure the value in the app.config file is actually a bool?

The best I've been able to come up with is this:

    class Options
{
    [TypeConversionValidator(typeof(bool), MessageTemplate = "IsRed value must be a true/false")]
    public string IsRed { get; set; }
    [TypeConversionValidator(typeof(bool), MessageTemplate = "IsBlue value must be a true/false")]
    public string IsBlue { get; set; }
}

Which would work, but then I'm dealing with strings instead of booleans.

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 02 '12 at 14:22

I have decided to use dynamic types. My code now looks like this:

class Options
{
    [TypeConversionValidator(typeof(bool), MessageTemplate = "IsRed value must be a true/false")]
    public dynamic IsRed { get; set; }
    [TypeConversionValidator(typeof(bool), MessageTemplate = "IsBlue value must be a true/false")]
    public dynamic IsBlue { get; set; }
}

    private ValidationResults LoadOptions()
    {
        _options.IsRed = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["IsRed"];
        _options.IsBlue = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["IsBlue"];

        var valFactory = EnterpriseLibraryContainer.Current.GetInstance<ValidatorFactory>();
        var cusValidator = valFactory.CreateValidator<Options>();
        var optionValidator = cusValidator.Validate(_options);

        if (optionValidator.IsValid)
        {
            _options.IsBlue = Convert.ToBoolean(_options.IsBlue);
            _options.IsRed = Convert.ToBoolean(_options.IsRed);
        }

        return optionValidator;
    }

Enterprise Library 5 Validation Type Safe?

1 Answers1