SelectList with multiple selected items

Question

How can i create a SelectList with multiple selected items?. I want to bind the SelectList to Razor dropdown and if its a single selected item i am using this code

        List<SchoolApp.Models.Accounts.role> roles = accRepo.GetRoles();
        if (selected > 0)
        {
            ViewBag.RolesList = new SelectList(roles, "Id", "RoleName");
        }
        else
        {
            ViewBag.RolesList = new SelectList(roles, "Id", "RoleName", selected);
        }

And in Razor i used the syntax

   <div class="editor-label">
        @Html.LabelFor(model => model.RoleId)
    </div>

    <div class="editor-field">         
        @Html.DropDownListFor(model => model.RoleId, (SelectList)ViewBag.RolesList, "Select", new { @class = "multiselect", @multiple = "multiple", @style = "width: 450px;height:300px" })
        @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.RoleId)
    </div>

But how can i set mutiple items as selected on this SelectList?I tried

  ViewBag.RolesList = new SelectList(roles, "Id", "RoleName",, new[] { 2, 3, 10, 11 });

But multiple items are not seems to be set as selected. How can i do this?

AlexB AlexB · Accepted Answer · 2013-10-08T09:35:40

You can't select multiple items with a SelectList

You need to use MultiSelectList and use it like this :

public MultiSelectList(
  IEnumerable items,
  string dataValueField,
  string dataTextField,
  IEnumerable selectedValues
)

You can also look at this SO answer

SelectList with multiple selected items

1 Answers