SelectListItem selected = true not working in view

Question

I have a gender select field (--Select--, Male, Female) and I\'m populating that in my controller. When the page loads, I want the gender that is selected in the model pm.

Answer 1

Try this instead in the controller:

string[] gender = new string[] {"Male", "Female"};
string selectedGender = gender.Where(x => x.StartsWith(pm.gender)).FirstOrDefault();
ViewData["gender"] = new SelectList(gender, selectedGender);

And in the view:

<%: Html.Dropdownlist(x => x.Gender, ViewData["gender"], "Select") %>