Using FluentValidation's WithMessage method with a list of named parameters

If you are using C# 6.0 or later, here's an improved syntax.

With version 8.0.100 or later of Fluent Validation, there is a WithMessage overload that takes a lambda accepting the object, and you can just do:

RuleFor(x => x.Name)
   .NotEmpty()
   .WithMessage(x => $"The name {x.Name} is not valid for Id {x.Id}.");

However, with earlier versions of Fluent Validation this somewhat hacky way is still pretty clean, and a lot better than forking its older versions:

RuleFor(x => x.Name)
   .NotEmpty()
   .WithMessage("{0}", x => $"The name {x.Name} is not valid for Id {x.Id}.");

You can't do that with the WithMessage in FluentValidation but you can high-jack the CustomState property and inject your message there. Here is a working example; Your other option is to fork FluentValidation and make an additional overload for the WithMethod.

This is a console application with references to FluentValidation from Nuget and the JamesFormater from this blog post:

http://haacked.com/archive/2009/01/04/fun-with-named-formats-string-parsing-and-edge-cases.aspx

The Best answer. Took inspiration from Ilya and realized you can just piggyback off the extension method nature of fluent validation. So The below works with no need to modify anything in the library.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;
using FluentValidation;

namespace stackoverflow.fv
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            var target = new My() { Id = "1", Name = "" };
            var validator = new MyValidator();
            var result = validator.Validate(target);

            foreach (var error in result.Errors)
                Console.WriteLine(error.ErrorMessage);

            Console.ReadLine();
        }
    }

    public class MyValidator : AbstractValidator<My>
    {
        public MyValidator()
        {
            RuleFor(x => x.Name).NotEmpty().WithNamedMessage("The name {Name} is not valid for Id {Id}");
        }
    }

    public static class NamedMessageExtensions
    {
        public static IRuleBuilderOptions<T, TProperty> WithNamedMessage<T, TProperty>(
            this IRuleBuilderOptions<T, TProperty> rule, string format)
        {
            return rule.WithMessage("{0}", x => format.JamesFormat(x));
        }
    }

    public class My
    {
        public string Id { get; set; }
        public string Name { get; set; }
    }

    public static class JamesFormatter
    {
        public static string JamesFormat(this string format, object source)
        {
            return FormatWith(format, null, source);
        }

        public static string FormatWith(this string format
            , IFormatProvider provider, object source)
        {
            if (format == null)
                throw new ArgumentNullException("format");

            List<object> values = new List<object>();
            string rewrittenFormat = Regex.Replace(format,
              @"(?<start>\{)+(?<property>[\w\.\[\]]+)(?<format>:[^}]+)?(?<end>\})+",
              delegate(Match m)
              {
                  Group startGroup = m.Groups["start"];
                  Group propertyGroup = m.Groups["property"];
                  Group formatGroup = m.Groups["format"];
                  Group endGroup = m.Groups["end"];

                  values.Add((propertyGroup.Value == "0")
                    ? source
                    : Eval(source, propertyGroup.Value));

                  int openings = startGroup.Captures.Count;
                  int closings = endGroup.Captures.Count;

                  return openings > closings || openings % 2 == 0
                     ? m.Value
                     : new string('{', openings) + (values.Count - 1)
                       + formatGroup.Value
                       + new string('}', closings);
              },
              RegexOptions.Compiled
              | RegexOptions.CultureInvariant
              | RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);

            return string.Format(provider, rewrittenFormat, values.ToArray());
        }

        private static object Eval(object source, string expression)
        {
            try
            {
                return DataBinder.Eval(source, expression);
            }
            catch (HttpException e)
            {
                throw new FormatException(null, e);
            }
        }
    }
}

While KhalidAbuhakmeh's answer is very good and deep, I just want to share a simple solution to this problem. If you afraid of positional arguments, why not to encapsulate error creation mechanism with concatenation operator + and to take advantage of WithMessage overload, that takes Func<T, object>. This CustomerValudator

public class CustomerValidator : AbstractValidator<Customer>
{
    public CustomerValidator()
    {
        RuleFor(customer => customer.Name).NotEmpty().WithMessage("{0}", CreateErrorMessage);
    }

    private string CreateErrorMessage(Customer c)
    {
        return "The name " + c.Name + " is not valid for Id " + c.Id;
    }
}

Prints correct original error message in next code snippet:

var customer = new Customer() {Id = 1, Name = ""};
var result = new CustomerValidator().Validate(customer);

Console.WriteLine(result.Errors.First().ErrorMessage);

Alternatively, use an inline lambda:

public class CustomerValidator : AbstractValidator<Customer>
{
    public CustomerValidator()
    {
        RuleFor(customer => customer.Name)
            .NotEmpty()
            .WithMessage("{0}", c => "The name " + c.Name + " is not valid for Id " + c.Id);
    }
}