Question

I have a Razor view in my asp.net MVC3 application with a dropdownlist like this:

@Html.DropDownListFor(model => model.Account.AccountType, new SelectList(Model.AccountTypes, "AccountTypeCode", "Abbreviation"))

This dropdown is inside a form. When form is posted to action method and viewmodel is filled because of model binding, It get the value(AccountTypeCode) and not the text “Abbreviation” property of dropdownlist. I want to get both of these. how can I get these in post action method.

Please suggest.

Answer 1

If you need more than one property of an object as a value for a dropdown, the easiest way is to create a combination of these in a partial class
EF 4, how to add partial classes this quesion should help you. You will be able to combine values under one property that you will provide to your dropdown helper.

If you don’t want to use partial classes I would advise creating your own helper, that will be a lot easier than trying to use something that does not fit your needs. You can do something like :

    @helper CustomDropdown(string name, IEnumerable<AccountTypes> valueList)
        {
        <select>
            @foreach (var item in valueList)
            {
                <option value="@item.Abbreviation @AccountTypeCode">@item.Abbreviation</option>
            }
        </select>
    }

Google “Creating an Inline HTML Helper” to get some valuable resources on that topic