MVC ViewBag Two Dimentional Array - How to access elements from controller

Question

I have a simple MVC C# controller with 2 dimention array.

ViewBag.states = new SelectList(db.states, "state_code", "state_zone");

If state_code = "FL", I want to get its state_zone value in the controller

I tried:

int newZone = ViewBag.states["FL"].state_zone 

but I get error:

Cannot apply indexing with [] to an expression of type 'System.Web.Mvc.SelectList'

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Since ViewBag.states is dynamic property, you can't use indexer of SelectList against it because state_zone already stored inside Text property:

int newZone = ViewBag.states["FL"].state_zone;

Also this declaration seems possible but may throwing indexing error as described in comment:

var zone = ViewBag.states as SelectList;

int newZone = Convert.ToInt32(zone.Items[0].Text); // error: 'cannot apply indexing with [] to an expression of type 'System.Collections.IEnumerable'

To use SelectList item indexer inside ViewBag object, you need to convert it into SelectList first, then use LINQ methods to reveal its value:

var zone = ViewBag.states as SelectList;

int newZone = Convert.ToInt32(zone.Skip(n).First().Text); // n = any index number

// alternative:
int newZone = Convert.ToInt32(zone.Where(p => p.Value == "[any_value]").First().Text);

Similar issue:

Get a text item from an c# SelectList