Question

I have a database and I am using the Entity Framework with Linq 2 Enities. I am working with ASP.NET MVC 2.

I have a database with two tables as shown bellow:

Classifieds             Catergories
ID(PK)                  CatID(PK)
CatID(FK)               CatName
Desc
...

Obviously when the user adds a new classified and when they come to pick the category they don’t want to see CatID’s so my question is this. How do I let the user add a classified by selecting the CatName?

I am using strongly typed views. Restructuring the database is out of the question. Answer in C# please.

Thanks,

Answer 1

I have come up with this solution:

Controller:

    var Catergories = classifiedsRepositry.GetClassifiedsCategories().AsEnumerable();

    ViewData["CatID"] = new SelectList(Catergories, "CatID" , "Category");

View:

<%: Html.DropDownListFor(model => model.CatID, (SelectList)ViewData["CatID"],"--Pick A Category--")%>

And that is it dead simple and it works fine!