I Can't get a DropDownList to populate from table. EF and MVC4

Question

I believe this will create a list in my HomeController. But not sure what calls it or where it goes in the Controller beside maybe the first Add ActionResult (GET method).

Answer 1

You need to pass the SelectList to your view. Ideally your view model should include a property for the SelectList but you can (yuk) use ViewBag, for example

View Model

public class MyViewModel
{
  public int SponsorID { get; set; }
  // other properties
  public SelectList SponsorList { get; set; }
}

Controller

public ActionResult SomeThing()
{
  MyViewModel model = new MyViewModel();
  // assign the select list
  var sponsors = from s in db.tblSponsors;
  model.SponsorList = new SelecList(sponsors, "SponsorID", "BizName");
  return View(model);
}

View

@Html.DropDownListFor(model => model.SponsorID, Model.SponsorList);

or if you assigned the select list to ViewBag

@Html.DropDownListFor(model => model.SponsorID, (SelectList)ViewBag.SponsorList);