RequiredAttribute with AllowEmptyString=true in ASP.NET MVC 3 unobtrusive validation

Note: I'm assuming you have AllowEmptyStrings = true because you're also using your view model outside of a web scenario; otherwise it doesn't seem like there's much of a point to having a Required attribute that allows empty strings in a web scenario.

There are three steps to handle this:

Create a custom attribute adapter which adds that validation parameter
Register your adapter as an adapter factory
Override the jQuery Validation function to allow empty strings when that attribute is present

Step 1: The custom attribute adapter

I modified the RequiredAttributeAdapter to add in that logic:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;
using System.Web.Mvc;

namespace CustomAttributes
{
    /// <summary>Provides an adapter for the <see cref="T:System.Runtime.CompilerServices.RequiredAttributeAttribute" /> attribute.</summary>
    public class RequiredAttributeAdapter : DataAnnotationsModelValidator<RequiredAttribute>
    {
        /// <summary>Initializes a new instance of the <see cref="T:System.Runtime.CompilerServices.RequiredAttributeAttribute" /> class.</summary>
        /// <param name="metadata">The model metadata.</param>
        /// <param name="context">The controller context.</param>
        /// <param name="attribute">The required attribute.</param>
        public RequiredAttributeAdapter(ModelMetadata metadata, ControllerContext context, RequiredAttribute attribute)
            : base(metadata, context, attribute)
        {
        }
        /// <summary>Gets a list of required-value client validation rules.</summary>
        /// <returns>A list of required-value client validation rules.</returns>
        public override IEnumerable<ModelClientValidationRule> GetClientValidationRules()
        {
            var rule = new ModelClientValidationRequiredRule(base.ErrorMessage);
            if (base.Attribute.AllowEmptyStrings)
            {
                //setting "true" rather than bool true which is serialized as "True"
                rule.ValidationParameters["allowempty"] = "true";
            }

            return new ModelClientValidationRequiredRule[] { rule };
        }
    }
}

Step 2. Register this in your global.asax / Application_Start()

    protected void Application_Start()
    {
        AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas();

        DataAnnotationsModelValidatorProvider.RegisterAdapterFactory(typeof(RequiredAttribute),
          (metadata, controllerContext, attribute) => new CustomAttributes.RequiredAttributeAdapter(metadata,
            controllerContext, (RequiredAttribute)attribute)); 

        RegisterGlobalFilters(GlobalFilters.Filters);
        RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);
    }

Step 3. Override the jQuery "required" validation function

This is done using the jQuery.validator.addMethod() call, adding our custom logic and then calling the original function - you can read more about this approach here. If you are using this throughout your site, perhaps in a script file referenced from your _Layout.cshtml. Here's a sample script block you can drop in a page to test:

<script>
jQuery.validator.methods.oldRequired = jQuery.validator.methods.required;

jQuery.validator.addMethod("required", function (value, element, param) {
    if ($(element).attr('data-val-required-allowempty') == 'true') {
        return true;
    }
    return jQuery.validator.methods.oldRequired.call(this, value, element, param);
},
jQuery.validator.messages.required // use default message
);
</script>

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