Trying to get data shown in a drop down list

Question

I have tried a lot of different solutions online, but I haven't been able to find any solutions which implement the solution I am looking for correctly.

I want to combine two attributes of a table, these being FirstName and LastName, and then I want to display these coupled attributes as a dropdownlist for the user to choose. I've also tried using SelectListItem, but that has only resulted in errors and I was unable to compile.

So far, my solution involves this:

In my controller:

     var data = 
            from p in db.Contacts
                   select new 
                   {
                      FirstName = p.FirstName,
                      LastName = p.LastName

                   };
        SelectList personList = new SelectList(data, "FirstName", "LastName");

In my View:

@Html.DropDownList("ContactName", (SelectList)ViewBag.Names)

The output of this is a drop down containing options that are in this format:

{ FirstName = Joe, LastName = Bloggs }

Any help would be appreciated.

Can you show the line of code that sets the value in `ViewBag.Names`? — StriplingWarrior, May 14 '15 at 20:08
Sure, the line after SelectList personList..... ViewBag.Names = personList; — Louise, May 14 '15 at 20:43

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:43

You need to concatenate the 2 field into one.

var data = 
            from p in db.Contacts
                   select new 
                   {
                      Name = p.FirstName + " " + p.LastName,
                      Id = p.IdContact
                   };
        SelectList personList = new SelectList(data, "Id", "Name");

With the code above you will achieve what you need.

But read this answer on how to better work with DropDownLists: https://stackoverflow.com/a/20008816/7720

Trying to get data shown in a drop down list

1 Answers1