Create MVC DropDownList from an Enum

Using Html.EnumDropDownListFor with MVC 5 and above

If you are using MVC 5, you can simply use this: Html.EnumDropDownListFor(m => m.YourEnumObject) and you're good to go.

Creating an HtmlHelper extension called EnumDropDownListFor

This solution is actually going to apply the same logic as a previous post I wrote Convert an Enum to a list and leveraging Enum.GetValues.

Here is the HtmlExtension method:

public static MvcHtmlString EnumDropDownListFor(this HtmlHelper htmlHelper, Expression> expression, object htmlAttributes)
{
	ModelMetadata metadata = ModelMetadata.FromLambdaExpression(expression, htmlHelper.ViewData);
	Type enumType = GetNonNullableModelType(metadata);
	IEnumerable values = Enum.GetValues(enumType).Cast();
	IEnumerable items = from value in values
		select new SelectListItem
		{
			Text = GetEnumDescription(value),
			Value = value.ToString(),
			Selected = value.Equals(metadata.Model)
		};
	// If the enum is nullable, add an 'empty' item to the collection
	if (metadata.IsNullableValueType)
		items = SingleEmptyItem.Concat(items);
	return htmlHelper.DropDownListFor(expression, items, htmlAttributes);
}

This can be accessed the exact same with Html.EnumDropDownListFor(m => m.YourEnumObject).

Published on Feb 2, 2020

Tags: ASP.NET MVC and Web API Tutorial | enum | dropdownlistfor