SelectListItem selected = true not working in view

Question

I have a gender select field (--Select--, Male, Female) and I\'m populating that in my controller. When the page loads, I want the gender that is selected in the model pm.

Answer 1

Method to get genders with select:

private Dictionary GetGender(){
    Dictionary myDic = new Dictionary();
    myDic.Add(System.DBNull.Value.ToString(), "Select");
    myDic.Add("Male", "Male");
    myDic.Add("Female", "Female");
    return myDic;
}

In the controller:

//without selectedValue
ViewData["gender"]  = new SelectList(GetGender(), "Key", "Value");

OR

//"Male" as selectedValue
ViewData["gender"]  = new SelectList(GetGender(), "Key", "Value", "Male");

In the view:

Html.DropDownListFor(m => m.Gender, (SelectList)(ViewData["gender"]),
                        new { @class = "span2" })