Question

I have an ASP.NET page with a drop down (asp:DropDownList) control. I also have a defined ENUM

Public Enum myEnumType As Integer
  A
  B
  C
End Enum

I want to define the “value” property of each asp:ListItem with one of the ENUM value (A,B,C represented as a string of course). I also want to assign the “text” value of each to be some unrelated string (e.g “dog”,”cat”,”ant”).

I would like to use this syntax:

<asp:DropDownList ID="myCombo" runat="server">
  <asp:ListItem Text="cat" Value="<%= myEnumType.A.toString() %>" />
  <asp:ListItem Text="dog" Value="<%= myEnumType.B.toString() %>" />
  <asp:ListItem Text="ant" Value="<%= myEnumType.C.toString() %>" />
</asp:DropDownList>

But using the <%= is not valid in this type of controls.

How can I do this in declarative ASP.NET (not with code behind to create each item)

Answer 1

MathewMartin’s answer works just seems really inefficient. Wouldn’t this be a better/cleaner approach?

string[] names = Enum.GetNames(typeof(MyFavoriteEnum));
int[] values = (int[])Enum.GetValues(typeof(MyFavoriteEnum));
for(int i =0; i<names.Length;i++){
   dropDown.Items.Add(
      new ListItem(
        names[i],
        values[i].ToString()
       )
   );
}