asp.mvc model design

Question

I am pretty new to MVC and I am looking for a way to design my models.

I have the MVC web site project and another class library that takes care of data access and c

Answer 1

That depends on what you mean by model. In the architecture I typically use, I have my Domain model, which is a collection of classes in a separate class library. I use DataAnnotations and built in validation to automatically validate my model when saving.

Then there is the View model, which I place in my MVC project. View models only have the information relevant to the view. I use data annotations here as well since MVC will automatically use them for my validation.

The reason for splitting the model this way is that you don't always use every piece of your domain model in a view. That means you either have to rebuild the data on the backend or you have to stash it in hidden fields. Neither is something I like,.