How to bind <select> values to the name of each item in an enum in ASP.NET Core MVC?

Question

I have an enum of some countries:

public enum Countries
{
    USA,
    Canada,
    Mexico,
}

I then have a property on my model:

[Required]
public string Country { get; set; }

In my view I have:

@Html.DropDownList("Country", Html.GetEnumSelectList(typeof(Countries)) ...)

I would like the value of each option in the generated select to be the name of each item from the Countries enum. By default, the value is a zero-based integer.

Answer 1

The values are zero-based integers because you've asked for an EnumSelectList, which outputs an enum (ie the int values).

Instead, you can get the list of enum names, something like:

@Html.DropDownList("Country", new SelectList(Enum.GetNames(typeof(Countries))) ... )