Question

I am trying to create a selectlist in c#. My code :

       var ceremonies = db.Ceremonies;
        var Ceremonies =
            from c in ceremonies
            select new SelectListItem
            {
                Text = c.Name + "_" + c.Date,
                Value = c.Id.ToString()
            };

But here i am getting exception something like ToString() method not supported. Whats the problem ?

Answer 1

Your query is being transformed into SQL – but the call to ToString can’t be handled properly. Generally the simplest way of fixing this is to effectively split the query into the part that needs to be done in the database, then switch to LINQ to Objects via AsEnumerable:

var ceremonies = db.Ceremonies
                   .Select(c => new { c.Name, c.Date, c.Id }
                   .AsEnumerable()
                   .Select(c => new SelectListItem {
                               Text = c.Name + "_" + c.Date, 
                               Value = c.Id.ToString()
                           });

As an aside, declaring two local variables which vary only by case gives pretty nasty readability.