How to use MVC Html Helper .DropDownListFor<> with an Enum

Question

In my MVC 3 Razor app, I have a Model with an enum..

Model Example:

public class EmployeeModel
{
 public enum Title
 {
  Accountant = 111,
  Sales =          


        

Answer 1

You could possibly get a String[] with the names of the enum values and create a dropdown from that. In your view model, add a property Titles of type SelectListItem and add the enum values and names to that. You can get the names and values through the System.Enum type.

var defaultItem = new SelectListItem();
defaultItem.Value = -1;
defaultItem.Text = "Choose a title";
defaultItem.Selected = true;
model.TitleSelectItems.add(defaultItem);

String[] names = System.Enum.GetNames(typeof(Title));
Int[] values = System.Enum.GetValues(typeof(Title));

for (int i = 0; i

It's kind of ugly, but it'll work.