Question

I want to retrieve data from db into a model and pass it to the view

e.g.
1) db State table, has 2 columns Code and Text.
2) my model:

public class state 
{
    public IEnumerable<SelectListItem> list { get; set; }
    public string selected { get; set; } 
}

3) and I want the controller to place code and text data from state table into list and set selected to 1 and return the model to the view

how would I write the loop in the controller

Answer 1

public class state
{
    public List<SelectListItem> list { get; set; }
    public string selected { get; set; }

    public state()
    {
        SqlConnection DbConn = new SqlConnection(YourConnectionStringHere);
        SqlCommand SelectStates = new SqlCommand();
        SelectStates.CommandText = "select code from state";
        SelectStates.Connection = DbConn;

        DbConn.Open()
        SqlDataReader ReadStates = SelectStates.ExecuteReader();

        while (reader.Read())
            list.Add(
                new SelectListItem() { Text = reader[0].ToString(), Value = reader[0].ToString() });

        DbConn.Close();

        list[0].Selected = true;
    }
}

Ideally, you could create a data access class to do what that above constructor does, but you should get the general idea of the code.

As for the Action method:

public ActionResult StateSelect()
{
    state YourViewModel = new state();

    return View(YourViewModel);
}

A corresponding View:

@model state

@* Add your other markup here *@

@Html.ListBoxFor(m => m.selected, Model.list)