What is a Validator Factory?

A validator factory is a class responsible for creating validator instances. The IValidatorFactory interface looks like this:

public interface IValidatorFactory {
  IValidator<T> GetValidator<T>();
  IValidator GetValidator(Type type);
}

The interface has two methods – one generic, one not. The GetValidator method will receive a Type instance representing the type of object that needs to be validated and it is the responsibility of this factory to create and return the appropriate validator instance.

Creating your own Validator Factory

To create your own Validator Factory you can either implement IValidatorFactory directly, or inherit from the ValidatorFactoryBase class (which does some of the work for you). In this example I’m going to create a validator factory that leverages StructureMap.

Firstly, you’ll need to register your validator types with StructureMap:

ObjectFactory.Configure(cfg => cfg.AddRegistry(new MyRegistry()));
 
public class MyRegistry : Registry {
  public MyRegistry() {
    For<IValidator<Person>>()
	.Singleton()
	.Use<PersonValidator>();
  }
}

Here I am configuring StructureMap using a custom Registry. In the Registry I tell StructureMap that when it is asked to instantiate an IValidator<Person>, it should return a PersonValidator.

Now, you can write a custom ValidatorFactory that leverages StructureMap to instantiate the validator:

public class StructureMapValidatorFactory : ValidatorFactoryBase {
	public override IValidator CreateInstance(Type validatorType) {
		return ObjectFactory.TryGetInstance(validatorType) as IValidator;
	}
}

In the CreateInstance method you receive a Type object that represents the type of validator that the framework requires (for example, typeof(IValidator<Customer>)). This method should attempt to instantiate the appropriate type (CustomerValidator) and return it (or return null if no such type exists).

Using the AssemblyScanner

The next version of FluentValidation (1.2) will also include an “AssemblyScanner” class that makes it very easy to automatically register all of the validator classes in a particular assembly with your IoC container. Using the AssemblyScanner, the MyRegistry class could look like this:

public class MyRegistry : Registry {
  public MyRegistry() {
 
    AssemblyScanner.FindValidatorsInAssemblyContaining<MyValidator>()
      .ForEach(result => {
           For(result.InterfaceType)
              .Singleton()
              .Use(result.ValidatorType);
      });
 
  }
}

Note that this functionality is not in the current 1.2 beta 3 release, but will be in 1.2 RC (or you can grab it from the source code).

Using the Factory with MVC

If you want to make use of FluentValidation’s ASP.NET MVC integration then you need to pass your ValidatorFactory to the FluentValidationModelValidatorProvider in your application startup routine:

protected void Application_Start() {
	RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);
 
	//Configure structuremap
	ObjectFactory.Configure(cfg => cfg.AddRegistry(new MyRegistry()));
	ControllerBuilder.Current.SetControllerFactory(new StructureMapControllerFactory());
 
	//Configure FV to use StructureMap
	var factory = new StructureMapValidatorFactory();
 
	//Tell MVC to use FV for validation
	ModelValidatorProviders.Providers.Add(new FluentValidationModelValidatorProvider(factory));        
	DataAnnotationsModelValidatorProvider.AddImplicitRequiredAttributeForValueTypes = false;
}

…and that’s it. FluentValidation will now use StructureMap to instantiate validator instances as it requires them.

Sample code from this post can be found on CodePlex.

This release mainly addresses issues from 1.2 beta 2 as well as adds supports for using Conditions (When/Unless) with Child Validators.

As usual, documentation and binaries are on CodePlex and source is on GitHub

In the video I cover some of the basics of using FluentValidation including:

• How to create a validator class
• Using templated error messages
• Writing custom validation rules
• Unit testing validators

After this, I demonstrate how you can use FluentValidation with ASP.NET MVC2 to perform automatic validation when using Model Binding, clientside validation and using FluentValidation to generate metadata.

The session will be live from 18:00 GMT (12:00 CST) and will last about 40 minutes. I’ll be covering the basics of using FluentValidation as well as how you can integrate it with ASP.NET MVC applications.

Update 13 Feb
The video for my talk is now available

Since my post on Limitations of MVC2’s ModelValidatorProviders ASP.NET MVC2 RC2 has been released which addresses some of the issues that I raised in the post.

Firstly, validation in MVC2 RC2 now performs model-validation rather than input validation. This is much more in line with how FluentValidation works which makes the FluentValidation integration much more consistent with the built-in validation.

Secondly, it is now possible to disable the DataAnnotationsModelValidatorProvider’s “greedy” required rule. Out of the box, the DataAnnotationsModelValidatorProvider will *always* validate non-nullable value types, irrespective of whether the property is decorated with a [Required] attribute. This meant that you had to un-register the DataAnnotations provider if you didn’t want to get duplicate errors. It is now possible to turn this off by calling DataAnnotationsModelValidatorProvider.AddImplicitRequiredAttributeForValueTypes = false; in your application startup routine.

Finally, I added the ability to be able to execute some of FluentValidation’s Property Validators without needing to validate the entire object. This means it is now possible to stop the default “A value was required” message from being added to ModelState.

Enabling the FluentValidationModelValidatorProvider

After downloading the 1.2 beta 2 release you’ll need to add a reference to FluentValidation.dll and FluentValidation.Mvc.dll

To enable the FluentValidationModelValidatorProvider you will need to add it to the ModelValidatorProviders collection in your application startup routine:

protected void Application_Start() {
	RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);
 
	DataAnnotationsModelValidatorProvider
		.AddImplicitRequiredAttributeForValueTypes = false;
 
	ModelValidatorProviders.Providers.Add(
		new FluentValidationModelValidatorProvider(new AttributedValidatorFactory()));
}

Note that you need to pass an IValidatorFactory to the FluentValidationModelValidatorProvider so that it knows how to create your validator instances. I’m using the AttributedValidatorFactory in this example, but in a real application you would probably use an implementation that wraps an IoC container instead.

Next, you can create your model object and associated validator:

[Validator(typeof(PersonValidator))]
public class Person {
	public int Id { get; set; }
	public string Name { get; set; }
	public string Email { get; set; }
	public int Age { get; set; }
}
 
public class PersonValidator : AbstractValidator<Person> {
	public PersonValidator() {
		RuleFor(x => x.Id).NotNull();
		RuleFor(x => x.Name).Length(0, 10);
		RuleFor(x => x.Email).EmailAddress();
		RuleFor(x => x.Age).InclusiveBetween(18, 60);
	}
}

Finally, you can create the controller and associated view:

public class PeopleController : Controller {
	public ActionResult Create() {
		return View();
	}
 
	[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)]
	public ActionResult Create(Person person) {
 
		if(! ModelState.IsValid) {
			return View("Create", person);
		}
 
		TempData["notice"] = "Person successfully created";
		return RedirectToAction("Index");
 
	}
}

 
<%= Html.ValidationSummary() %>
 
<% using (Html.BeginForm()) { %>
	Id: <%= Html.TextBoxFor(x => x.Id) %><%= Html.ValidationMessageFor(x => x.Id) %>
	<br />
	Name: <%= Html.TextBoxFor(x => x.Name) %><%= Html.ValidationMessageFor(x => x.Name) %>			
	<br />
	Email: <%=Html.TextBoxFor(x => x.Email) %><%= Html.ValidationMessageFor(x => x.Email) %>
	<br />
	Age: <%= Html.TextBoxFor(x => x.Age) %><%= Html.ValidationMessageFor(x => x.Age) %>
 
	<br /><br />
 
	<input type="submit" value="submit" />
<% } %>

Now when you post the form MVC’s DefaultModelBinder will validate the Person object using the FluentValidationModelValidatorProvider.

Clientside Validation

This release also has preliminary support for clientside validation. This is enabled by calling <% Html.EnableClientValidation(); %> in your views. At the moment, only the NotNull, NotEmpty, RegularExpression and Length validators are supported.

Note that if you try to use the clientside validation support with the default error messages, you will see error messages like this:

'{PropertyName}' must not be empty.

This is because FluentValidation uses templated error messages but the MVC Framework’s clientside validation runner does not know how to correctly format these. For now, the only workaround is to explicitly specify the error message:

RuleFor(x => x.Surname).NotNull().WithMessage("'Surname' must not be empty");

For FluentValidation 1.3 I will consider providing a customised version of MVC’s MicrosoftMvcValidation.js that knows how to properly format FluentValidation error templates.

Metadata Support

Out of the box, MVC2 allows you to use the DataAnnotations attributes to provide metadata for editor/display templates. This release of FluentValidation allows you to use extra extension methods on your validator classes to define metadata using method chaining.

Firstly, you will need to replace the DataAnnotationsModelMetadataProvider with the new FluentValidationModelMetadataProvider in your Application_Start:

ModelMetadataProviders.Current = new FluentValidationModelMetadataProvider(
	new AttributedValidatorFactory());

Now you can start using the metadata extension in your validator classes (you will need to import the FluentValidation.Mvc.MetadataExtensions namespace):

public CustomerValidator() {
   RuleFor(x => x.Surname)
      .NotNull() //regular validator
      .UIHint("Surname"); //MVC Metadata
}

The FluentValidationModelMetadataProvider currently supports the following metadata-related extension methods which correspond to the DataAnnotations attributes with the same name:

• HiddenInput
• UIHint
• Scaffold
• DataType
• DisplayName
• DisplayFormat
• ReadOnly

Edit: 8th FebNote that there is a bug in the current beta build where MetaData won’t work in some circumstances. This is already fixed for the next beta, so you may want to use the latest binaries from the build server.

As usual, binaries are on CodePlex and the source is on GitHub.

This release contains several new features:

Setting the validator cascade mode

In v1.1, if you have multiple validators defined on a single property then all of those validators will be executed even if the first one fails. This can be changed by calling the Cascade method:

RuleFor(x => x.Surname)
  .Cascade().StopOnFirstFailure()
  .NotNull()
  .Length(1, 250);

In this case, the Length validator would not be run on the Surname property if the NotNull validator fails.

This is customisable globally by setting the static property ValidatorOptions.CascadeMode.

MVC2 Support

The FluentValidationModelBinder has been modified to work with ASP.NET MVC2 RC. Note that if you want to use FluentValidation with MVC1, you will need to use the older 1.1 release.

FluentValidation 1.2 Beta 1 does not currently include the custom ModelMetadataProvider and ModelValidatorProvider that I mentioned in this post.

In its current state, the MVC2 metadata API is not extensible enough to work well with FluentValidtion (see this post for details) so I’ve omitted them from this beta. If MVC2’s support for external frameworks is improved before RTM, then I will consider re-adding these features for the next release.

Custom user state

Custom user state can be stored alongside validation failures:

RuleFor(person => person.Surname).NotNull().WithState(person => "foo")

This state can then be retrieved from the ValidationFailure object if the rule fails:

var result = validator.Validate(model);
var error = result.Errors[0];
var customState= error.CustomState;

OnAnyFailure

Rules can define a callback method that will be invoked if any of the validators associated with a particular rule fail:

RuleFor(person => person.Surname).NotNull().OnAnyFailure(person => {
   Console.WriteLine("#fail");
});

WithPropertyName

The WithPropertyName method can be used to override the name of the property that will be used when associating an error message with a particular property:

public class PersonValidator : AbstractValidator<Person> {
  public PersonValidator() {
    RuleFor(person => person.Surname).NotNull().WithPropertyName("foo");
  }
}
var validator = new PersonValidator();
var result = validator.Validate(new Person());
//property name is 'foo' instead of 'Surname'
string propertyName = result.Errors.Single().PropertyName;

InlineValidator

The InlineValidator can be used to define rules without creating a dedicated validator class:

var validator = new InlineValidator<Person>() {
  v => v.RuleFor(x => x.Surname).NotNull();
  v => v.RuleFor(x => x.Age).GreaterThan(0);
}

ValidateAndThrow

The ValidateAndThrow extension method can be used to throw an exception when validation fails rather than returning a ValidationResult.

Experimental xVal integration

Thanks to Adam Schroder, FluentValidation now includes experimental support for generating xVal rules. I’ve labelled this as “Experimental” as there is currently no support for custom validation messages or some of the more complex FluentValidation rules. The future of the FluentValidation xVal integration also depends on what happens with MVC2’s validation providers and whether xVal will continue to be developed after the MVC2 release.

New PropertyValidator base class (potentially breaking change)

In FluentValidation 1.x, all property validators implemented the IPropertyValidator<T,TProperty> interface. As of v1.2 this has been deprecated in favour of the PropertyValidator base class. Note that property validators themselves are no longer generic, which makes them easier to work with if you need to gather metadata about a validator.

For example, in v1.1 the NotNullValidator looked like this:

[ValidationMessage(Key = "notnull_error")]
public class NotNullValidator<T, TProperty> : IPropertyValidator<T, TProperty> {
	public PropertyValidatorResult Validate(PropertyValidatorContext<T, TProperty> context) {
		if (context.PropertyValue == null) {
			var formatter = new MessageFormatter().AppendProperyName(context.PropertyDescription);
			string error = context.GetFormattedErrorMessage(typeof(NotNullValidator<T, TProperty>), formatter);
 
			return PropertyValidatorResult.Failure(error);
		}
		return PropertyValidatorResult.Success();
	}
}

…while in v1.2 it now looks like this:

public class NotNullValidator : PropertyValidator, INotNullValidator {
	public NotNullValidator() : base(() => Messages.notnull_error) {
		SupportsStandaloneValidation = true;
	}
 
	protected override bool IsValid(PropertyValidatorContext context) {
		if (context.PropertyValue == null) {
			return false;
		}
		return true;
	}
}

The use of a base class helps keep the validator definitions simple. Also note that the ValidationMessage attribute has been removed – localised error messages can now be specified either by passing a resource type and key to the base PropertyValidator constructor or by using a lambda expression.

If you have written any custom property validators, it is recommended that you change them to inherit from PropertyValidator. However, there is a backwards compatibility layer in place which should allow old-style property validators to continue working.

DefaultResourceManager has been removed (breaking change)

In order to add better localization support, the DefaultResourceManager has been removed in favour of Visual Studio’s default generated “Messages” class. If you need to replace this with your own Messages class, you can set the static ResourceProviderType property on the ValidatorOptions class.

One of the new features in ASP.NET MVC 2 is the ability the ability to define multiple validation providers. These are used by the DefaultModelBinder to automatically validate your model objects when they are passed to action parameters.

I wanted to try and write one of these for FluentValidation (see this post) but after trying this it has become quite clear that the ModelValidatorProvider API does have some limitations which have caused me some problems.

Problem 1: Property-level validation

To understand this problem, first we need to look at how different validation frameworks perform their work.

When using FluentValidation, the validators work against a pre-populated object. For example:

public class CustomerValidator : AbstractValidator<Customer{ 
  public CustomerValidator() {
     RuleFor(x => x.Surname).NotNull();
     RuleFor(x => x.CreditLimit).GreaterThanOrEqualTo(0);
  }
}
 
var customer = new Customer { CreditLimit = -1, Surname = null };
var validator = new CustomerValidator();
var results = validator.Validate(customer);

You cannot reliably validate individual properties by themselves because they may have dependencies on *other* properties being set. For example:

RuleFor(x => x.Surname).NotEqual(x => x.Forename);

This rule says tht the Surname and Forename properties must not be equal. In this case, you cannot validate the surname property by itself without having first set the value for the Forename property. Other validation frameworks (eg the Castle Project’s validation attributes) work in a similar way.

The MVC Framework’s DefaultModelBinder is primarily designed to work with the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations attributes. These work in a different way – they validate individual values, not the entire object. To support this, the DefaultModelBinder allows validating both the individual property values (in the OnPropertyValidated method) as well as validating the entire instance (in the OnModelUpdated method).

Here are the relevant methods from DefaultModelBinder:

//OnPropertyValidated - called for each property being bound.
protected virtual void OnPropertyValidated(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext, PropertyDescriptor propertyDescriptor, object value) {
    ModelMetadata propertyMetadata = bindingContext.PropertyMetadata[propertyDescriptor.Name];
    propertyMetadata.Model = value;
    string modelStateKey = CreateSubPropertyName(bindingContext.ModelName, propertyMetadata.PropertyName);
 
    // run validation
    foreach (ModelValidator validator in propertyMetadata.GetValidators(controllerContext)) {
        foreach (ModelValidationResult validationResult in validator.Validate(bindingContext.Model)) {
            bindingContext.ModelState.AddModelError(CreateSubPropertyName(modelStateKey, validationResult.MemberName), validationResult.Message);
        }
    }
 
    // only add a "value was required" error message if there were no validation errors
    if (bindingContext.ModelState.IsValidField(modelStateKey)) {
        if (value == null && !TypeHelpers.TypeAllowsNullValue(propertyDescriptor.PropertyType)) {
            bindingContext.ModelState.AddModelError(modelStateKey, GetValueRequiredResource(controllerContext));
        }
    }
}

//OnModelUpdated - called once the entire object has been bound. 
protected virtual void OnModelUpdated(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext) {
    IDataErrorInfo errorProvider = bindingContext.Model as IDataErrorInfo;
    if (errorProvider != null) {
         string errorText = errorProvider.Error;
         if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(errorText)) {
            bindingContext.ModelState.AddModelError(bindingContext.ModelName, errorText);
          }
    }
 
    if (!IsModelValid(bindingContext)) {
        return;
    }
 
    foreach (ModelValidator validator in bindingContext.ModelMetadata.GetValidators(controllerContext)) {
        foreach (ModelValidationResult validationResult in validator.Validate(null)) {
            bindingContext.ModelState.AddModelError(CreateSubPropertyName(bindingContext.ModelName, validationResult.MemberName), validationResult.Message);
        }
    }
}

On first glance, this looks like it will work. When OnPropertyValidated calls GetValidators, I can return an empty collection of validators and do all of my work in a single validator in OnModelUpdated. Unfortunately, this does not work.

See the end of OnPropertyValidated? Here, it checks if there have been any validation errors for the property and if not then it will go ahead and run its own built-in field validation anyway for non-nullable value types – it will put a message saying “A value was required” into ModelState. And you can’t turn this off. The *only way* to stop this built-in validation is to support property-level validation in your custom ValidatorProvider. Not very useful if the underlying framework does not support this.

To work around the above issue, I ended up adding property-level validation to FluentValidation, but this is not a completely reliable solution because of the issues related to cross-property validation I mentioned above.

Problem 2: The DataAnnotationsModelValidatorProvider is greedy

The next problem that I ran into is that the DataAnnotationsModelValidatorProvider will always run required field validation, even if you’re not using the DataAnnotations attributes!

Here is an example that uses FluentValidation to validate an object where a null value is being bound to a non-nullable value type:

[Validator(typeof(FooValidator))]
public class Foo {
	public int Id { get; set; }
}
 
public class FooValidator : AbstractValidator<Foo> {
	public FooValidator() {
		RuleFor(x => x.Id).NotEmpty();
	}
}
 
[Test]
public void AddsOneError() {
	var foo = new Foo();
 
	ModelValidatorProviders.Providers.Add(
		new FluentValidationModelValidatorProvider(new AttributedValidatorFactory())
	);
 
	var meta = ModelMetadataProviders.Current.GetMetadataForProperty(() => null, typeof(Foo), "Id");
	var validators = ModelValidatorProviders.Providers.GetValidators(meta, new ControllerContext());
 
	var results = validators.SelectMany(x => x.Validate(foo)).ToList();
 
	Assert.AreEqual(1, results.Count()); //fails - 2 instead of 1
}

This test fails because there are two error messages rather than one:

The Id field is required.
'Id' should not be empty.

…the first of these errors comes from the DataAnnotationsModelValidatorProvider even though I have NOT decorated the Id property with a [Required] attribute.

Why does this happen? The answer is in DataAnnotationsModelValidatorProvider’s GetValidators method:

 if (metadata.IsRequired && !attributes.Any(a => a is RequiredAttribute)) {
       attributes = attributes.Concat(new[] { new RequiredAttribute() });
 }

This checks to see if the property is a non-nullable type and it does not have a RequiredAttribute, then it assumes that the property should have a RequiredAttribute anyway!
You can work around this by removing the DataAnnotationsModelValidatorProvider:

ModelValidatorProviders.Providers.Clear();
ModelValidatorProviders.Providers.Add(
	new FluentValidationModelValidatorProvider(new AttributedValidatorFactory())
);

…and the test now passes.

Unfortunately, this is far from ideal. This means you cannot use the DataAnnotations attributes to validate one model and a custom provider for a different model. You have to choose one or the other.

One way to work around this problem is to use a composite validator provider that wraps the underlying providers:

public class CompositeValidatorProvider : ModelValidatorProvider {
	public static void Bootstrap(ModelValidatorProviderCollection providerCollection, params ModelValidatorProvider[] customProviders) {
		var validators = customProviders.ToList();
		validators.AddRange(providerCollection);
		providerCollection.Clear();
		providerCollection.Add(new CompositeValidatorProvider(validators));
	}
 
	readonly IEnumerable<ModelValidatorProvider> innerInnerProviders;
 
	protected CompositeValidatorProvider(IEnumerable<ModelValidatorProvider> innerProviders) {
		this.innerInnerProviders = innerProviders;
	}
 
	public override IEnumerable<ModelValidator> GetValidators(ModelMetadata metadata, ControllerContext context) {
		foreach(var provider in innerInnerProviders) {
			var validators = provider.GetValidators(metadata, context).ToList();
			if(validators.Count > 0) {
				return validators;	
			}
		}
 
		return Enumerable.Empty<ModelValidator>();
	}
}

This custom provider can be used to wrap the built-in providers (including the DataAnnotations provider) as well as your own custom providers. In its GetValidators method, it iterates over each of the inner providers and asks each one to create a collection of validators. It only returns validators from the first provider that returns a non-empty collection. This means that if your custom provider can validate the object then the DataAnnotations provider will not be executed.

Now, the following test passes:

[Test]
public void AddsOneError() {
	var foo = new Foo();
 
    	var fluentProvider = new FluentValidationModelValidatorProvider(new AttributedValidatorFactory());
 
	CompositeValidatorProvider.Bootstrap(ModelValidatorProviders.Providers, fluentProvider);
 
	var meta = ModelMetadataProviders.Current.GetMetadataForProperty(() => null, typeof(Foo), "Id");
	var validators = ModelValidatorProviders.Providers.GetValidators(meta, new ControllerContext());
 
	var results = validators.SelectMany(x => x.Validate(foo)).ToList();
 
	Assert.AreEqual(1, results.Count());
}

This raises the question: if you have to resort to doing this, what is the point in allowing multiple validation providers to be registered in the first place?

I am really hoping that the MVC team will fix this fairly significant problem before RTM, but as MVC2 is already at the RC stage I think this will be unlikely.

Continuous builds can still be downloaded from my build server.

Documentation, discussions and the issue tracker will still remain on the CodePlex site, but if you want to play with the source code then you’ll need to head over to GitHub instead. If you have not used Git before then I recommend reading my Git Guide (the guide was written for the MvcContrib project, but all the concepts apply to FluentValidation too).

What’s coming with v1.2?

The upcoming release of FluentValidation (v1.2) will have several changes including the following:

A custom ModelMetadataProvider

The FluentValidationModelMetadataProvider will allow you to define ASP.NET MVC Metadata inside your validator classes, eg:

public CustomerValidator() {
   RuleFor(x => x.Surname)
      .NotNull() //regular validator
      .UIHint("Surname"); //MVC Metadata
 
}

The FluentValidationModelMetadataProvider will support the following metadata-related extension methods:

• HiddenInput
• UIHint
• Scaffold
• DataType
• DisplayName
• DisplayFormat
• ReadOnly

A custom ModelValidatorProvider

Previous versions of FluentValidation had a custom IModelBinder implementation that allowed you to use FluentValidation to validate ASP.NET MVC action parameters. This will no longer be necessary in v1.2 as ASP.NET MVC 2’s ModelValidatorProvider infrastructure means FluentValidation can now be plugged in to MVC’s DefaultModelBinder:

public class MvcApplication : HttpApplication {
   public void Application_Start() {
      RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);
 
      ModelValidatorProviders.Providers.Add(new FluentValidationModelValidatorProvider(new AttributedValidatorFactory()));
   }
}

Note that the FluentValidationModelValidatorProvider will only support server-side validation, not client-side validation. FluentValidation’s validation mechanism is not compatible with how ASP.NET MVC 2 generates clientside validation rules.

Customisable Validator Cascade Mode

The validator cascade mode will be customisable in v1.2. Currently, if you have multiple validators defined on a single property then all of those validators will be executed even if the first one fails. This can be changed by calling the Cascade method:

RuleFor(x => x.Surname)
  .Cascade().StopOnFirstFailure()
  .NotNull()
  .Length(1, 250);

In this case, the Length validator would not be run on the Surname property if the NotNull validator fails.

This will also be customisable globally by setting the static property ValidatorOptions.CascadeMode.

I hope to release a first beta of v1.2 in the next couple of weeks. The final release should coincide with the release of ASP.NET MVC 2.

Be sure to check it out.