Question

I am drawing a blank here.. I am using MVC and my model doesn’t have the Value Name, it just has the ID.

The problem is with ‘itm.DegreeTypeId’ it is just an int. But I need to match it up with a string name.. so DegreeTypeId 1 = Associates Degree, 2 = Bachelor, 3 = MBA etc.

I don’t want to update the model to have the name, but instead to a quick lookup. What’s the best way to proceed here? I know I can create a method and have it return the string based on a number but there has to be a better cleaner way.

        string education = string.Empty;
        int eduCount = 0;
        foreach (var itm in candidate.Educations)
        {
            if (eduCount > 0) education += "<br><br>";
            education += string.Format("<b>{0}</b><br>{1} {2}<br>{3}Graduated: {4}<br>",
                                      itm.DegreeTypeId,
                                      itm.InstitutionName,
                                      itm.InstitutionLocation,
                                      itm.GraduatedOn.HasValue
                                          ? string.Format("{0:MMMM yyyy}", itm.GraduatedOn.Value)
                                          : string.Empty);
            eduCount++;
        }

Answer 1

Try using a Dictionary

static readonly Dictionary<int, string> Degrees = new Dictionary<int, string>() {
    {1, "Associates Degree"},
    {2, "Bachelor"},
    {3, "MBA"},
    ...
};

So the relevant snippet looks like this:

education += string.Format("<b>{0}</b><br>{1} {2}<br>{3}Graduated: {4}<br>",
                                  Degrees(itm.DegreeTypeId),
                                  ...