What is the best way to code up a Month and Year drop down list for ASP.NET?
Question
I have an internal application that I needs to have a drop down list for two date type elements: Month and Year. These values are not in a database or other repository of information.
I know I could just setup a list with the values I need by adding them to a dictionary like object (I need to correlate the Month to the numerical representation, January => 01):
var months = new Dictionary<String,String>();
months.Add("01", "January");
...
The drop down list for the year will be a bit easier as I can just choose a starting year and iterate up to the current or current+1 year in a generic list.
Is there a better way to handle these data elements? Something built in, or a good design pattern that I should be implementing?
Solution
You could use this to get a list of all the Month names and loop through it.
CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat.MonthNames
You can use it like this...using the index of the Month as the value for your dropdown
var months = CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat.MonthNames;
for (int i = 0; i < months.Length; i++)
{
ddl.Items.Add(new ListItem(months[i], i.ToString()));
}
OTHER TIPS
Extending @Jesse Brown's answer...
With a using System.Globalization directive, I have the following code:
for (int x = 0; x < 12; x++)
{
cboMonth.Items.Add
(
(x+1).ToString("00")
+ " "
+ CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat.MonthNames.GetValue(x)
);
}
This produces a dropdown list that looks like:
01 January 02 February 03 March ... 12 December
A further refinement might be to make the displayed month the current month by adding:
cboMonth.Text = DateTime.Now.Month.ToString("00")
+ " "
+ CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat.MonthNames.GetValue(DateTime.Now.Month);
After the for loop.
Here is my solution, which is very similar to @jesse-brown's solution (the accepted answer)
VB.NET:
In a global functions class:
Public Shared Function GetMonthList() As Generic.Dictionary(Of String, String)
Dim months As New Generic.Dictionary(Of String, String)()
For m As Int32 = 1 To 12
months.Add(String.Format("{0:0#}", m), CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat.GetMonthName(m))
Next
Return months
End Function
On the ASPX page:
Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load
ddMonth.DataSource = GlobalFunctions.GetMonthList()
ddMonth.DataValueField = "Key"
ddMonth.DataTextField = "Value"
ddMonth.DataBind()
End Sub
This implementation is in VB.NET because that happens to be what this webapp is using (legacy), however thank you very much for the examples in C# (my preferred language), I'm posting the VB.NET here to help the VB.NET community as well.
For ASP.NET MVC this is what I'm doing.
Note I prefer to use a codebehind for things like this - its still part of the view and there's nothing wrong with the view constructing a SelectList.
PaymentControl.ascx
<%= Html.DropDownList("ExpirationMonth", ExpirationMonthDropdown)%> /
<%= Html.DropDownList("ExpirationYear", ExpirationYearDropdown)%>
PaymentControl.ascx.cs
public partial class PaymentControl : ViewUserControl<CheckoutModel>
{
public IEnumerable<SelectListItem> ExpirationMonthDropdown
{
get
{
return Enumerable.Range(1, 12).Select(x =>
new SelectListItem()
{
Text = CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat.AbbreviatedMonthNames[x - 1] + " (" + x + ")",
Value = x.ToString(),
Selected = (x == Model.ExpirationMonth)
});
}
}
public IEnumerable<SelectListItem> ExpirationYearDropdown
{
get
{
return Enumerable.Range(DateTime.Today.Year, 20).Select(x =>
new SelectListItem()
{
Text = x.ToString(),
Value = x.ToString(),
Selected = (x == Model.ExpirationYear)
});
}
}
}
Below code is for load month dropdown as Select
private void LoadMonth()
{
ddlmonth.Items.Add(new ListItem("Select", 0.ToString()));
var months = CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat.MonthNames;
for (int i = 0; i < months.Length-1; i++)
{
ddlmonth.Items.Add(new ListItem(months[i], (i+1).ToString()));
}
}
public void bind_month()
{
var months = CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat.MonthNames;
ddl_month.Items.Insert(0, new ListItem("--Select--", "0"));
for (int i = 0; i < months.Length-1; i++)
{
ddl_month.Items.Add(new ListItem(months[i],(i+1).ToString()));
}
}
/Try this code to bind all month in dropdown list without using database/
public void GetMonthList(DropDownList ddl)
{
DateTime month = Convert.ToDateTime("1/1/2000");
for (int i = 0; i < 12; i++)
{
DateTime NextMont = month.AddMonths(i);
ListItem list = new ListItem();
list.Text = NextMont.ToString("MMMM");
list.Value = NextMont.Month.ToString();
ddl.Items.Add(list);
}
//ddl.Items.Insert(0, "Select Month");
ddl.Items.FindByValue(DateTime.Now.Month.ToString()).Selected = true;
}
You can try this... Ref Here:
http://allinworld99.blogspot.com/2015/01/bind-monthsyear-dropdownlist-c-aspnet.html
for (int i = 1; i <= 12; i++)
{
drpBMonth.Items.Add(new System.Web.UI.WebControls.ListItem(DateTimeFormatInfo.CurrentInfo.GetMonthName(i), i.ToString()))};