ASP.NET Validation Controls: How to Disable It

Validating an input is a common need, sometimes we want a field must be filled, a field must be in a specific range, or an input must follow a special pattern. ASP.NET has a bunch of validation controls that make our job a little bit easy. Despite all of the ease of use offered by ASP.NET validation controls, sometimes -just maybe- we need to disable it.

One important thing we must if we use ASP.NET validation controls is: what actions will trigger validators? One of the answer is button click! (The other maybe Postback action). With that in mind, we can take a conclusion that every click event of asp.net button (<asp:Button />) by default will always trigger validation controls to take the appropriate action.

Let’s say I want to disable RequiredFieldValidator against a TextBox control for one action, and enable it for another action, how can I accomplish this? Consider I have textbox control and two button controls (previous button and next button accordingly). I want if previous button clicked it goes to previous page and doesn’t fire the required field validator. Well, the solution is really simple.