Customize the limitation of catalog content’s code.

This is my first blog post, so comments and suggestions are welcome!

Recently we got a “feature request” from a customer, saying that the code should be able to contain commas, and they further asked to be able to customize the limitation of catalog content’s code, based on a Regex of their choice.

We already support that!

You might already know how it works, but if you don’t, then it’s quite simple:

In CatalogContentBase, we have a protected constant string, defined like this:

protected const string ValidCodeCharactersRegex = @"^[A-Za-z0-9\-_()\.\s]*$";

And in EntryContentBase and NodeContent, Code property is defined by something like this (other attributes are omitted):

[RegularExpression(ValidCodeCharactersRegex, ErrorMessage = "/commerce/validation/codecharactersonly")]

public virtual string Code { get; set; }

It’s quite clear to understand the intention here: We’ll validate the inputted string for Code against ValidCodeCharactersRegex, and if it’s not validated, then we show this message:

But it’s easily to change the behavior

In your catalog content model class, you just need to override the ValidCodeCharactersRegex field with new one, for example, to allow the commas:

protected new const string ValidCodeCharactersRegex = @"^[A-Za-z0-9\,\-_()\.\s]*$";

Then build project and you’ll be good to go:

To avoid code duplication, simply define wrapper classes for catalog content model, and inherit from them instead. For example:

[CatalogContentType(GUID = "BE40A3E0-49BC-48DD-9C1D-819C2661C9BC")]

public class VariantItemContent : VariationContent

{

protected new const string ValidCodeCharactersRegex = @"^[A-Za-z0-9\,\-_()\.\s]*$";

}

Then all of class inherited from VariantItemContent will use new validation instead of the default one.

In CatalogContentBase, we have another field for the validation of SeoUri, named ValidUrlCharactersRegex, which you can also change to fit your need.

Happy customizing!