How do you create a dropdownlist from an enum in A

Question

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?

Answer 1

Html.DropDownListFor only requires an IEnumerable, so an alternative to Prise's solution is as follows. This will allow you to simply write:

@Html.DropDownListFor(m => m.SelectedItemType, Model.SelectedItemType.ToSelectList())

[Where SelectedItemType is a field on your model of type ItemTypes, and your model is non-null]

Also, you don't really need to genericize the extension method as you can use enumValue.GetType() rather than typeof(T).

EDIT: Integrated Simon's solution here as well, and included ToDescription extension method.

public static class EnumExtensions
{
    public static IEnumerable<SelectListItem> ToSelectList(this Enum enumValue)
    {
        return from Enum e in Enum.GetValues(enumValue.GetType())
               select new SelectListItem
               {
                   Selected = e.Equals(enumValue),
                   Text = e.ToDescription(),
                   Value = e.ToString()
               };
    }

    public static string ToDescription(this Enum value)
    {
        var attributes = (DescriptionAttribute[])value.GetType().GetField(value.ToString()).GetCustomAttributes(typeof(DescriptionAttribute), false);
        return attributes.Length > 0 ? attributes[0].Description : value.ToString();
    }
}

Answer 2

I found an answer here. However, some of my enums have [Description(...)] attribute, so I've modified the code to provide support for that:

    enum Abc
    {
        [Description("Cba")]
        Abc,

        Def
    }


    public static MvcHtmlString EnumDropDownList<TEnum>(this HtmlHelper htmlHelper, string name, TEnum selectedValue)
    {
        IEnumerable<TEnum> values = Enum.GetValues(typeof(TEnum))
            .Cast<TEnum>();

        List<SelectListItem> items = new List<SelectListItem>();
        foreach (var value in values)
        {
            string text = value.ToString();

            var member = typeof(TEnum).GetMember(value.ToString());
            if (member.Count() > 0)
            {
                var customAttributes = member[0].GetCustomAttributes(typeof(DescriptionAttribute), false);
                if (customAttributes.Count() > 0)
                {
                    text = ((DescriptionAttribute)customAttributes[0]).Description;
                }
            }

            items.Add(new SelectListItem
            {
                Text = text,
                Value = value.ToString(),
                Selected = (value.Equals(selectedValue))
            });
        }

        return htmlHelper.DropDownList(
            name,
            items
            );
    }

Hope that helps.

Answer 3

@Html.DropdownListFor(model=model->Gender,new List<SelectListItem>
{
 new ListItem{Text="Male",Value="Male"},
 new ListItem{Text="Female",Value="Female"},
 new ListItem{Text="--- Select -----",Value="-----Select ----"}
}
)

Answer 4

If you want to add localization support just change the s.toString() method to something like this:

ResourceManager rManager = new ResourceManager(typeof(Resources));
var dayTypes = from OperatorCalendarDay.OperatorDayType s in Enum.GetValues(typeof(OperatorCalendarDay.OperatorDayType))
               select new { ID = s, Name = rManager.GetString(s.ToString()) };

In here the typeof(Resources) is the resource you want to load, and then you get the localized String, also useful if your enumerator has values with multiple words.

Answer 5

In .NET Core you can just use this:

@Html.DropDownListFor(x => x.Foo, Html.GetEnumSelectList<MyEnum>())

Answer 6

Here a Martin Faartoft variation where you can put custom labels which is nice for localization.

public static class EnumHtmlHelper
{
    public static SelectList ToSelectList<TEnum>(this TEnum enumObj, Dictionary<int, string> customLabels)
        where TEnum : struct, IComparable, IFormattable, IConvertible
    {
        var values = from TEnum e in Enum.GetValues(typeof(TEnum))
                     select new { Id = e, Name = customLabels.First(x => x.Key == Convert.ToInt32(e)).Value.ToString() };

        return new SelectList(values, "Id", "Name", enumObj);
    }
}

Use in view:

@Html.DropDownListFor(m => m.Category, Model.Category.ToSelectList(new Dictionary<int, string>() { 
          { 1, ContactResStrings.FeedbackCategory }, 
          { 2, ContactResStrings.ComplainCategory }, 
          { 3, ContactResStrings.CommentCategory },
          { 4, ContactResStrings.OtherCategory }
      }), new { @class = "form-control" })
@Html.ValidationMessageFor(m => m.Category)