Question

I have this annoying problem where my DropDownlist doesn’t select the current value by default.

Controller:

var YearsCycling = new SelectList(new List<SelectListItem>() 
{ 
    new SelectListItem(){ Value="1yr", Text="1yr"},
    new SelectListItem(){ Value="1-3yrs", Text="1-3yrs"}, 
    new SelectListItem(){ Value="3-5yrs", Text="3-5yrs"}, 
    new SelectListItem(){ Value="5-10yrs", Text="5-10yrs"}, 
    new SelectListItem(){ Value="10+yrs", Text="10+yrs"} 
},
"Value",
"Text",
new SelectListItem() { Value = "5-10yrs", Text = "5-10yrs", 
Selected = true });
ViewBag.YearsCycling = YearsCycling;

View:

<%:Html.DropDownListFor(model=>model.YearsCycling,(SelectList)ViewBag.YearsCycling,"-select-") %>

but instead of selecting “5-10yrs”, it just shows the “-select-” option and if I inspect the DOM source, none of the elements are selected.

UPDATE: I still don’t know what the problem is, but I got it working for now by doing something ugly:

<%
    var sl = (SelectList)ViewBag.YearsCycling;
%>
<select name="YearsCycling" id="YearsCycling">
<%foreach(var li in sl){  %>
    <option value="<%:li.Value %>" <%if(li.Selected){%>selected="true"<%}%>><%:li.Text %></option>
<%} %>
</select>

This isn’t the best solution, but if you’ve come to this question because you’ve been pulling your hair out, this should help.

Answer 1

Your code should be.

var YearsCycling = new List<SelectListItem>() 
{ 
    new SelectListItem(){ Value="1yr", Text="1yr"},
    new SelectListItem(){ Value="1-3yrs", Text="1-3yrs"}, 
    new SelectListItem(){ Value="3-5yrs", Text="3-5yrs"}, 
    new SelectListItem(){ Value="5-10yrs", Text="5-10yrs", Selected=true}, 
    new SelectListItem(){ Value="10+yrs", Text="10+yrs"} 
};

ViewBag.YearsCycling = YearsCycling;

You could use this overload instead.

<%:Html.DropDownListFor(model=>model.YearsCycling,ViewBag.YearsCycling as List<SelectListItem>) %>