ASP.NET MVC dropdown-list from database

Question

Ok, so I\'m new to this whole MVC-world, but it seems to be a pretty good way of getting things done and I\'m trying to make it work here.

The problem is: I can\'t g

Answer 1

I find this system works (and avoids using ViewBag):

View Model:

public class YourViewModel
{
    // This could be string, int or Guid depending on what you need as the value
    public int YourDropdownSelectedValue { get; set; }
    public IEnumerable YourDropdownList { get; set; }
}

Controller:

// Get database values (by whatever selection method is appropriate)
var dbValues = db.YourEntity.ToList();

// Make Selectlist, which is IEnumerable
var yourDropdownList = new SelectList(dbValues.Select(item => new SelectListItem
{
    Text = item.YourSelectedDbText,
    Value = item.YourSelectedDbValue
}).ToList(), "Value", "Text");

// Assign the Selectlist to the View Model   
var viewModel = new YourViewModel(){
    // Optional: if you want a pre-selected value - remove this for no pre-selected value
    YourDropdownSelectedValue = dbValues.FirstOrDefault(),
    // The Dropdownlist values
    YourDropdownList = yourDropdownList
};

// return View with View Model
return View(viewModel);

and in the View:

@Html.DropDownListFor(a => a.YourDropdownSelectedValue, Model.YourDropdownList, "select this text - change this to null to exclude", new { @class = "your-class" })