Question

I have an MVC3 drop down list that come from this code on the controller.

private SelectList progCodesList = new SelectList(new[] { "Description", "Requirements", "Development", "Testing", "Documentation" });

How can I fill the fields from a repository, to build the drop down dynamically?
Thanks.

Answer 1

Assuming you have the progCodes in a database table, with progCode having the text, and progCodeId with a unique id, then you can read the table into a list of SelectListItem as follows:

private DbContext _db = new DbContext();

var progCodesList = _db.progCodes.Select(x => new SelectListIem()
    {
        Text = x.progCode,
        value = x.progCodeId
    }).ToList();

You can then pass this List<SelectListItem> to your view either in a strongly-typed model, or using the ViewBag.