Html.DropDownListFor does not select value - asp.net-mvc

Question

I have an action that retrieves data and sends it to a view. In a view I have two dropdown menus.
First drop down shows salutation (such as "Mr.", "Ms.", etc.) and does not select value I sent for some reason. The other dropdown shows language list and correctly selects value I sent to the view. The relevant code in view is shown below.
#Html.DropDownListFor(model => model.Salutation, ViewBag.salutation as IEnumerable<SelectListItem>)
#Html.DropDownListFor(model => model.Language, ViewBag.languages as IEnumerable<SelectListItem>)
In the controller I have the following code to get the dropdown data.
ViewBag.salutation = new List<SelectListItem>() {
new SelectListItem() { Text = "", Value = "" },
new SelectListItem() { Text = "Mr.", Value = "Mr." },
new SelectListItem() { Text = "Ms.", Value = "Ms." },
new SelectListItem() { Text = "Mrs.", Value = "Mrs." }
};
and
var languages = (from l in db.Languages.ToList()
select new SelectListItem()
{
Text = l.Language,
Value = l.LanguageId.ToString()
}).ToList();
languages.Insert(0, new SelectListItem() { Text = "", Value = "" });
ViewBag.languages = languages;
The only difference I could think of is that the languages dropdown has an integer as value, whereas salutation dropdown has text as value. Is this why the salutation dropdown doesn't work? I know I could go through each salutation List<SelectListItem> item and set Selected property based on the value I retrieved from database. But I was hoping there would be a cleaner way to do this.
Any ideas?
Thanks
UPDATE
I decided to do what I did for another project.
IList<SelectListItem> _salutation = new List<SelectListItem>()
{
new SelectListItem() { Value = "", Text = "" },
new SelectListItem() { Value = "Mr.", Text = "Mr." },
new SelectListItem() { Value = "Ms.", Text = "Ms." },
new SelectListItem() { Value = "Mrs.", Text = "Mrs." }
};
// I could put the following in the declaration above, but for testing purposes it's in foreach loop.
foreach (var item in _salutation)
{
// compare to what's retrieved from database
item.Selected = item.Value == _viewData.Salutation;
}
ViewBag.salutation = _salutation;
After foreach loop I output .Value, .Selected property of each item in _salutation and I get all the correct values with one item being selected. Inside the view I did the following.
#foreach (var item in ViewBag.salutation as IEnumerable<SelectListItem>)
{
<b>#item.Value : #item.Text : #item.Selected</b><br />
}
All the correct Text/Values come up but none are Selected! This happens if I output the values after I execute #Html.DropDownListFor(). If I output the ViewBag.salutation before the html helper the correct value is selected.
SOLUTION
I found the following article useful: DropDownListFor with ASP.NET MVC.
Instead of using ViewBag I added the following to the ViewModel. (Showing the part for salutations drop down.)
public class TheViewModel
{
private IList<string> _salutations = new List<string>() { "", "Mr.", "Ms.", "Mrs." };
public IEnumerable<SelectListItem> SalutationItems
{
get
{
var salutations = _salutations.Select(s => new SelectListItem { Value = s, Text= s });
return salutations;
}
}
// The rest of the ViewModel
}
And in the View I have the following.
#Html.DropDownListFor(model => model.Salutation, Model.SalutationItems)

Answer 1

Instead of just supplying the list to the DropDownListFor helper you could provide it a SelectList. The SelectList constructor takes the list and allows you to explicitly set the selected value as well as an overload that lets you specify the Text and Value fields.
#Html.DropDownListFor(model => model.Salutation,
new SelectList(ViewBag.salutation as IEnumerable<SelectListItem>,
"Value", "Text", Model.Salutation))

Answer 2

Try this,
#Html.DropDownListFor(m =>m.DDCountryModel,IEnumerable<SelectListItem>)ViewBag.salutation)
#Html.DropDownListFor(model => model.Language, IEnumerable<SelectListItem>)ViewBag.languages)
Your Model should be like this,
public class Model
{
public IEnumerable<SelectListItem> DDCountryModel{ get; set; }
public IEnumerable<SelectListItem> Language{ get; set; }
}