Cannot convert type 'System.Collections.Generic.List' to 'System.Web.Mvc.SelectList'

Question

I have the following Action method, which have a viewBag with a list of strings:- ``` public ActionResult Login(string returnUrl) { List domains = new List(); domains.Add("DomainA"); ViewBag.ReturnUrl = returnUrl; ViewBag.Domains = domains; return View(); } ``` and on the view i am trying to build a drop-down list that shows the viewBag strings as follow:- ``` @Html.DropDownList("domains",(SelectList)ViewBag.domains ) ``` But i got the following error :- Cannot convert type 'System.Collections.Generic.List' to 'System.Web.Mvc.SelectList' So can anyone adive why i can not populate my DropDown list of a list of stings ? Thanks

Accepted Answer

Because `DropDownList` does not accept a list of strings. It accepts `IEnumerable`. It's your responsibility to convert your list of strings into that. This is easy enough though: ``` domains.Select(m => new SelectListItem { Text = m, Value = m }) ``` Then, you can feed that to `DropDownList`: ``` @Html.DropDownList("domains", ((List)ViewBag.domains).Select(m => new SelectListItem { Text = m, Value = m })) ```

Cannot convert type 'System.Collections.Generic.List<string>' to 'System.Web.Mvc.SelectList'

Solution

Problem