razor Html.DropdownList provide “Please select” as optionLabel AND “US” as selectedValue

Question

Data:

var countries = new Dictionary();
countries.Add(\"AF\",\"Afghanistan\");
countries.Add(\"US\",\"United States\");
cou         


        

Answer 1

This should work. No idea why it doesn't because you haven't shown your actual code. Probably there's no option with key = "US" in your actual dataset.

But anyway let me illustrate with an example the approach that I would recommend which is to use a view model and a strongly typed helper DropDownListFor helper.

Model:

public class CountriesViewModel
{
    public string SelectedCountryCode { get; set; }
    public IEnumerable Countries { get; set; }
}

Controller:

public class HomeController : Controller
{
    public ActionResult Index()
    {
        var model = new CountriesViewModel();
        // TODO: obviously those will come from your database
        model.Countries = new[]
        {
            new SelectListItem { Value = "AF", Text = "Afghanistan" },
            new SelectListItem { Value = "US", Text = "United States" },
            new SelectListItem { Value = "FR", Text = "France" },
        };

        // Preselect the option with Value = "US"
        // Make sure you have such option in the Countries list
        model.SelectedCountryCode = "US";
        return View(model);
    }
}

View (~/Views/Home/Index.cshtml):

@model CountriesViewModel

@Html.DropDownListFor(
    x => x.SelectedCountryCode,
    Model.Countries, 
    "Select Country"
)

Result: