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Dropdownlist from an enum in ASP.NET MVC

Jayden Bell 2801 18 Nov 2014

I'm trying to use the Html.DropDownList extension method but can't figure out how to use it with an enumeration.

Let's say I have an enumeration like this:

public enum ItemTypes
{
    Movie = 1,
    Game = 2,
    Book = 3
}

How do I go about creating a dropdown with these values using the Html.DropDownList extension method? Or is my best bet to simply create a for loop and create the html elements manually?

Jayden Bell

Other

1 Answers

Takeshi Okada 18 Nov 2014

I rolled Rune's answer into an extension method:

namespace MyApp.Common
{
    public static class MyExtensions{
        public static SelectList ToSelectList<TEnum>(this TEnum enumObj)
            where TEnum : struct, IComparable, IFormattable, IConvertible
        {
            var values = from TEnum e in Enum.GetValues(typeof(TEnum))
                select new { Id = e, Name = e.ToString() };
            return new SelectList(values, "Id", "Name", enumObj);
        }
    }
}

This allows you to write:

ViewData["taskStatus"] = task.Status.ToSelectList();

by using MyApp.Common

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