Question

I have the following drop down in my aspx:

<aspx:DropDownList
ID="ddl1"
runat="server"/>

In the code-behind (C#), I want to retrieve the value from the DropDownList.

I populated my dropdown as such:

ddl1.DataSource = LocationOfData;
ddl1.DataBind();

LocationOfData returns of type CustomType. EDIT: CustomType is an enum.

I want to be able to accomplish the following:

CustomType? myvar = ddl1.Text

In other words, create a nullable variable using my CustomType and set it equal to the variable from the drop down. But the type that I can only retrieve Text (String) from ddl1.

Answer 1

If CustomType is an Enum you first have to parse your ddl1.Text to an Enum and then cast it to a Nullable type:

CustomType? myvar = (CustomType?) Enum.Parse(typeof(CustomType), ddl1.Text, true)