asp .net mvc 4 dropdownlist

Question

I am using VS2012 MVC 4 with EF. I want to make a view where the user can upload movie title and type for it (actionmovie, scifi, etc that comes from a dropdownlist!), and store it in database.

Model:

public class Movie
{
    [DatabaseGeneratedAttribute(DatabaseGeneratedOption.Identity)]
    public int Id { get; set; }

    public string Name { get; set; }

    [ForeignKey("Type")]
    public int TypeId { get; set; }

    public virtual Type Type { get; set; }
}

public class Type
{
    [DatabaseGeneratedAttribute(DatabaseGeneratedOption.Identity)]
    public int TypeId { get; set; }

    public string TypeName { get; set; }

    public virtual ICollection<Movie> Movies { get; set; }
}

If I am right I successfully made One to Many relationship between the Type and Movie table.

Controller:

    [HttpPost]
    [Authorize]
    public ActionResult NewMovie(Movie movie)
    {
        db.Movies.Add(movie);
        db.SaveChanges();
        return View(movie);
    }

View:

@using (Html.BeginForm())
    {
        <table>
            <tr>
                <td>@Html.DisplayNameFor(model => model.Name)</td>
                <td>@Html.DisplayNameFor(model => model.TypeId)</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>@Html.TextBoxFor(model => model.Name)</td>
                <td>@Html.DropDownListFor.........
            </tr>
        </table>
        <input type="submit" value="submit" />
    }

I do not really know how should I make this Dropdownlist in the view, and make the specific details for it in the controller with the most secure way (I think i should make a list/enumerable from the movie.typeid or the Type class)

I would be very glad if you could help me! Thank you

Answer 1

I use List for my dropdown list. to do it that way you can build the list like this on your controller

List<SelectListItem> ls = new List<SelectListItem>();
foreach(var temp in Movies){
    ls.Add(new SelectListItem() { Text = temp.Text, Value = temp.Value });
}
Movie.MovieList = ls;

you can only pass one model to the view. from your code you are passing the movie model so put

public List<SelectListItem> MovieList { get; set; }

in your model. Then on the view you can build your dropdownlist like this

@Html.DropDownListFor(x => x.Id, Model.MovieList)

Let me know if you have any questions.