Tea Commerce server side validation

Tea Commerce is all about great design and a cool javaScripts. For this reason it is easy to forget the need for server side validation of customer data. To place an order, a user would have put something in his cart, but he may also need to enter some specific data about himself or the order. In most cases common javascript validation will be sufficient, but JavaScript validation can be cheated. If it is important to collect valid data, server side validation will be needed.

The scenario for server side validation in Tea Commerce

Basically I intend to validate step 2 of the cart process, where, in most cases, customer information is entered. My solution must make sure to check whether the data is filled out correctly, whenever the customer tries to go to a step beyond step 2.

There must also be taken into account localization of the cart. This means that I do not want to hard code any IDs in my server side code. I also need to check whether there is an order and the order has associated order lines. If the order does not validate, I will send people back to the step that failed validation.

How to do server side validation in Tea Commerce

Server side validation is not standard in Tea Commerce. Luckily the Tea Commerce .NET API gives us plenty of options to do it ourselves. There is undoubtedly lots of ways to solve the problem. However, I have chosen to do it with an Umbraco XSLT library extension, which have the oportunity to redirect the customers to other pages.

I will therefore make an Umbraco XSLT library method that can be called from any of the xslt’s. More specifically, it should be called on the steps that come after step 2, and send the customer back if validation fails.

The Umbraco XSLT library extension

There is not much to write about this and I will let the code and the embedded comments speak for themselves. However, I can give you this checklist with the things you must handle before it will work. The code for everything is found a little further down.

1. Build a dll with the Umbraco library extension and upload it to the bin folder
2. Register your XSLT extension in the file /config/xsltExtensions.config
3. Make the method call in your xslt’s. Remember that the new extension must be registered in the xslt itself. New xslt’s automatically get your extension inserted into the xsl:stylesheet tag. You can make a new one and copy the entire top of that if you have allready made your cart xslt’s

Full XSLT library extension code

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using TeaCommerce;
using TeaCommerce.Data;

namespace ServersideValidation {
  public class Library {

    public Library() {
      //This has to be here, because of the way umbraco runs xslt extension
    }

    public static string ValidateOrder( int currentStepId, int cartStep2Id ) {
      try {
        //Test to make sure we are not logged in at the back end
        var test = HttpContext.Current.CurrentHandler as umbraco.BasePages.UmbracoEnsuredPage;
        if ( test == null ) {

          //Get the order
          Order order = TeaCommerce.Razor.TeaCommerce.GetOrder();

          //If there is no order we redirect to step 1 of the cart
          if ( order == null || order.OrderLines.Count() == 0 )
            HttpContext.Current.Response.Redirect( umbraco.library.NiceUrl( cartStep2Id ) + "?validate=false", true );

          //If the current step is not step 1 we validate the data on that step
          if ( currentStepId != cartStep2Id ) {
            //Get the values we must validate
            string firstName = order.GetPropertyValue( "firstName" ),
                  lastName = order.GetPropertyValue( "lastName" ),
                  streetAddress = order.GetPropertyValue( "streetAddress" ),
                  zipCode = order.GetPropertyValue( "zipCode" ),
                  city = order.GetPropertyValue( "city" ),
                  email = order.GetPropertyValue( "email" );

            //Simple validation of the values
            if ( string.IsNullOrEmpty( firstName ) ||
                 string.IsNullOrEmpty( lastName ) ||
                 string.IsNullOrEmpty( streetAddress ) ||
                 string.IsNullOrEmpty( zipCode ) ||
                 string.IsNullOrEmpty( city ) ||
                 string.IsNullOrEmpty( email ) ) {
              //Go back to step 1 if validation fails
              HttpContext.Current.Response.Redirect( umbraco.library.NiceUrl( cartStep2Id ) + "?validate=false", true );
            }
          }
        }
      } catch ( Exception ex ) {
        return ex.Message;
      }
      return string.Empty;
    }
  }
}

The registration in Umbraco’s /config/xsltExtensions.config file

The method call in cartStep03.xslt (And presumably in subsequent steps)

<xsl:template match="/">

<xsl:variable name="step2PageId" select="umbraco.library:GetDictionaryItem('step2PageId')"/>
<xsl:value-of select="ServersideValidation:ValidateOrder($currentPage/@id, $step2PageId)" />

Tea Commerce links

• Official Tea Commerce Website
• Tea Commerce Documentation
• Tea Commerce Multilanguage Kit
• Tea Commerce Starter Kit
• Tea Commerce Demo Webshop