I'd like to know it is it possible to create programmatically single LINQ query (for EntityFramework 6) with N .Where() clauses, but with OR between these .Where() clauses.
Imagine IQueryable object defined like:
var query = dbContext.MyTable.Where(mt => mt.TimeStamp >= DateBegin);
What I need else is add N (unknown number) of Where clauses, but with OR condition between them.
Image list of some object:
List<MyObject> myObj =
new List<MyObject>({new MyObject {val = "a" }, new MyObject { val = "b"}}); //In real code there is more than 1 property.
then I'd like to add Where() clauses to query like:
myObj.ForEach(mo =>{
// THIS CREATES -AND- BETWEEN WHERE CLAUSES, BUT I NEED -OR-
query.Where(q=>q.MyValue == mo.val); // In real code there is more than 1 property to compare
});
I was thinking about .Union() beteween queries, but It could generate union between separated queries and it's not optimal I think.
Thanks!
Here's the solution: linq-to-entities-combining-predicates
Or course is necessary to use "latest" answer:
Copy/Paste class ParameterRebinder
Copy/Paste static class Utility
Usage:
Expression<Func<Car, bool>> theCarIsRed = c => c.Color == "Red";
Expression<Func<Car, bool>> theCarIsCheap = c => c.Price < 10.0;
Expression<Func<Car, bool>> theCarIsRedOrCheap = theCarIsRed.Or(theCarIsCheap);
var query = carQuery.Where(theCarIsRedOrCheap);
Because in my solution is N of expressions, I take first expression and then append other expressions in ForEach cycle.
var firstExpression = expressionList.First();
expressionList.Skip(1).ToList().ForEach(ex => { firstExpression = firstExpression.Or(ex); });
Related
you can easily create dynamic queries in c# if you add more restrictions to the current query.
var list = new List<Item>();
var q = list.AsQueryable();
q = q.Where(x => x.Size == 3);
q = q.Where(x => x.Color == "blue");
In this case, every new predicate is added performing an AND operation with the previous. The previous result is equivalent to:
q = list.Where(x => x.Size == 3 && x.Color == "blue");
Is it possible to achieve the same result but with OR instead of AND?
q = list.Where(x => x.Size == 3 || x.Color == "blue");
The idea is to have a variable number of expressions that are joined with OR operator.
Expected result would need to be written in some how similar to the following pseudo code:
var conditions = new List<Func<Item, bool>>();
And later iterate conditions to build something like:
foreach(var condition in conditions)
finalExpression += finalExpression || condition;
Another possible solution to this, especially when someone doesn't want to use an external library is using expression trees.
Add a following expression extension:
public static Expression<Func<T, bool>> Or<T>(
this Expression<Func<T, bool>> expr1,
Expression<Func<T, bool>> expr2)
{
var invokedExpr = Expression.Invoke(expr2, expr1.Parameters);
return Expression.Lambda<Func<T, bool>>(
Expression.OrElse(expr1.Body, invokedExpr), expr1.Parameters);
}
As an example imagine you have a Container entity, which has InnerContainer nested entity with two properties Name and Id. Then you can use it in the following way:
Expression<Func<Container, bool>> whereQuery = c => c.InnerContainer.Name == "Name1";
whereQuery = whereQuery.Or(c => c.InnerContainer.Name == "Name2");
whereQuery = whereQuery.Or(c => c.InnerContainer.Id == 0);
var result = query
.Where(whereQuery)
.ToList();
Materializing such query will result in the following SQL:
SELECT [x].[Id], [x].[InnerContainerId]
FROM [Containers] AS [x]
LEFT JOIN [InnerContainer] AS [x.InnerContainer] ON [x].[InnerContainerId] = [x.InnerContainer].[Id]
WHERE [x.InnerContainer].[Name] IN (N'Name1', N'Name2') OR ([x].[InnerContainerId] = 0)
This way you can hold lambdas in a collection and loop through them.
Thanks to Raphaël Althaus that gave the following link:
http://www.albahari.com/nutshell/predicatebuilder.aspx
Predicate builder is the solution. You can use it installing LinqKit from Nuget. In that url you can find also the implementation of this class.
Note: in order to make this work with LinqToSql or LinqToEntities the IQueriable Object must be transformed using "AsExpandable()" method, for memory objects it's not required
I have a very basic sql view which joins 3 tables: users, pictures, and tags.
How would one create the query below in a way that it won't list the same pictures more than once? In other words, I want to Group By pictures (I think) and return get the first insance of each.
I think this is very similar to the post Linq Query Group By and Selecting First Items, but I cannot figure out how to apply it in this case where the query is instantiating MyImageClass.
validPicSummaries = (from x in db.PicsTagsUsers
where x.enabled == 1
select new MyImageClass {
PicName = x.picname,
Username= x.Username,
Tag = x.tag }).Take(50);
To exclude duplicates, you can use the Distinct LINQ method:
validPicSummaries =
(from x in db.PicsTagsUsers
where x.tag == searchterm && x.enabled == 1
select new MyImageClass
{
PicName = x.picname,
Username= x.Username,
Tag = x.tag
})
.Distinct()
.Take(50);
You will need to make sure that the objects are comparable so that two MyImageClass objects that have the same PicName, Username, and Tag are considered equal (or however you wish to consider two of them as being equal).
You can write a small class that implements IEqualityComparer<T> if you would like to have a custom comparer for just this case. Ex:
private class MyImageClassComparer : IEqualityComparer<MyImageClass>
{
public bool Equals(MyImageClass pMyImage1, MyImageClass pMyImage2)
{
// some test of the two objects to determine
// whether they should be considered equal
return pMyImage1.PicName == pMyImage2.PicName
&& pMyImage1.Username == pMyImage2.Username
&& pMyImage1.Tag == pMyImage2.Tag;
}
public int GetHashCode(MyImageClass pMyImageClass)
{
// the GetHashCode function seems to be what is used by LINQ
// to determine equality. from examples, it seems the way
// to combine hashcodes is to XOR them:
return pMyImageClass.PicName.GetHashCode()
^ pMyImageClass.UserName.GetHashCode()
^ pMyImageClass.Tag.GetHashCode();
}
}
Then when you call distinct:
...
.Distinct(new MyImageClassComparer())
.Take(50);
The beginning of my Linq query is below.
Pay attention only to the where clause. Does Linq do the ToLower() only once? Or does it do ToLower() for every element of searchWords?
var products = from d in xElem.Descendants(fileName)
where searchWords.All(t => d.Element(productName).Value.ToLower().Contains(t))
Assuming this is LINQ to Objects, it will absolutely do it (and indeed the Element call) on each element of searchWords. There's nowhere it could really store state to do anything else, implicitly. You can optimize this easily yourself though:
var products = from d in xElem.Descendants(fileName)
let lowerD = d.Element(productName).Value.ToLower()
where searchWords.All(t => lowerD.Contains(t))
Or in a non-query expression you could use a statement lambda:
var products = xElem.Descendants(fileName)
.Where(d => {
string lowerD = d.Element(productName).Value.ToLower();
return searchWords.All(t => lowerD.Contains(t));
})
... // rest of query
Note that there are other ways of performing case-insensitive comparisons which are more robust. For example:
var products = from d in xElem.Descendants(fileName)
let v = d.Element(productName).Value
where searchWords.All(t =>
v.IndexOf(t, StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase) != -1)
I'm trying to get the following SQL query to work in LINQ:
Select id from table1 where id in (1,2) or canceledId in (1,2)
I'm using BuildContainsExpression to achieve the "IN" condition, but I can't figure out how to implement the "or" condition.
My shot in the dark is as follows:
var identifiers = new List<int> {1,2};
var query = (from t in Context.Table1
select t);
var query =
query.Where(BuildContainsExpression<Table1, int>(t => t.Id, identifiers));
if (showCanceled)
{
var expression = query.Where(BuildContainsExpression<Table1, int>(t => t.CanceledId.Value, identifiers)).Expression;
Expression.Or(expression, transactionsQuery.Expression);
}
But I get the following exception:
The binary operator Or is not defined for the types 'System.Linq.IQueryable1[Table1]' and 'System.Linq.IQueryable1[Table1]'..
Any ideas? -Am I in the right direction?
Thanks,
Nir.
You are appending your OR in the wrong place. What you are doing now is effectively something like this:
(from t in Context.Table1
where identifiers.Contains(t.Id)
select t)
OR
(where identifiers.Contains(t.CanceledId))
The second problem is that the BuildContainsExpression method you use, returns a lambda expression, something that looks like this:
t => t.Id == 1 || t.Id == 2 || ...
You can't change this expression once it's generated. However, that's what you want because you'd like to have something like this:
t => t.Id == 1 || t.Id == 2 || ... || t.CanceledId == 1 || t.CanceledId == 2 || ...
You can't simply take the body of this lambda expression and or it together with another expression because it depends on the parameter t.
So what you can do is the following:
// Overload of BuildContainsExpression.
private static Expression<Func<T, bool>> BuildOtherContainsExpression<T>(
ParameterExpression p, Expression field1, Expression field2, int[] values)
{
var eq1 = values.Select(v => Expression.Equal(field1, Expression.Constant(v)));
var eq2 = values.Select(v => Expression.Equal(field2, Expression.Constant(v)));
var body = eq1.Aggregate((acc, equal) => Expression.Or(acc, equal));
body = eq2.Aggregate(body, (acc, equal) => Expression.Or(acc, equal));
return Expression.Lambda<Func<T, bool>>(body, p);
}
// Create a parameter expression that represents something of type Table1.
var parameter = Expression.Parameter(typeof(Table1), "t");
// Create two field expressions that refer to a field of the parameter.
var idField = Expression.Property(parameter, "Id");
var canceledIdField = Expression.Property(parameter, "CanceledId");
// And finally the call to this method.
query.Where(BuildContainsExpression<Table1>(
parameter, idField, canceledIdField, identifiers));
Your if statement would now look like this:
if (!showCanceled)
{
// Use original version of BuildContainsExpression.
}
else
{
// Create some expressions and use overloaded version of BuildContainsExpression.
}
I know I'm a bit late to the party here - but I think the original code in the original poster's question was 99% right.
The only wrong was that instead of
Expression.Or
it should have been
Expression.OrElse
Let's say I have an array, and I want to do a LINQ query against a varchar that returns any records that have an element of the array anywhere in the varchar.
Something like this would be sweet.
string[] industries = { "airline", "railroad" }
var query = from c in contacts where c.industry.LikeAnyElement(industries) select c
Any ideas?
This is actually an example I use in my "Express Yourself" presentation, for something that is hard to do in regular LINQ; As far as I know, the easiest way to do this is by writing the predicate manually. I use the example below (note it would work equally for StartsWith etc):
using (var ctx = new NorthwindDataContext())
{
ctx.Log = Console.Out;
var data = ctx.Customers.WhereTrueForAny(
s => cust => cust.CompanyName.Contains(s),
"a", "de", "s").ToArray();
}
// ...
public static class QueryableExt
{
public static IQueryable<TSource> WhereTrueForAny<TSource, TValue>(
this IQueryable<TSource> source,
Func<TValue, Expression<Func<TSource, bool>>> selector,
params TValue[] values)
{
return source.Where(BuildTrueForAny(selector, values));
}
public static Expression<Func<TSource, bool>> BuildTrueForAny<TSource, TValue>(
Func<TValue, Expression<Func<TSource, bool>>> selector,
params TValue[] values)
{
if (selector == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("selector");
if (values == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("values");
if (values.Length == 0) return x => true;
if (values.Length == 1) return selector(values[0]);
var param = Expression.Parameter(typeof(TSource), "x");
Expression body = Expression.Invoke(selector(values[0]), param);
for (int i = 1; i < values.Length; i++)
{
body = Expression.OrElse(body,
Expression.Invoke(selector(values[i]), param));
}
return Expression.Lambda<Func<TSource, bool>>(body, param);
}
}
from c in contracts
where industries.Any(i => i == c.industry)
select c;
something like that. use the any method on the collection.
IEnumerable.Contains() translates to SQL IN as in:
WHERE 'american airlines' IN ('airline', 'railroad') -- FALSE
String.Contains() which translates to SQL LIKE %...% as in:
WHERE 'american airlines' LIKE '%airline%' -- TRUE
If you want the contacts where the contact's industry is LIKE (contains) any of the given industries, you want to combine both Any() and String.Contains() into something like this:
string[] industries = { "airline", "railroad" };
var query = from c in contacts
where industries.Any(i => c.Industry.Contains(i))
select c;
However, combining both Any() and String.Contains() like this is NOT supported in LINQ to SQL. If the set of given industries is small, you can try something like:
where c.Industry.Contains("airline") ||
c.Industry.Contains("railroad") || ...
Or (although normally not recommended) if the set of contacts is small enough, you could bring them all from the DB and apply the filter with LINQ to Objects by using contacts.AsEnumerable() or contacts.ToList() as the source of the query above:
var query = from c in contacts.AsEnumerable()
where industries.Any(i => c.Industry.Contains(i))
select c;
it will work if you build up the query as follows:
var query = from c in contacts.AsEnumerable()
select c;
query = query.Where(c=> (c.Industry.Contains("airline")) || (c.Industry.Contains("railroad")));
you just need to programmatically generate the string above if the parameters airline and railroad are user inputs. This was in fact a little more complicated than I was expecting. See article - http://www.albahari.com/nutshell/predicatebuilder.aspx
Unfortunately, LIKE is not supported in LINQ to SQL as per here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb882677.aspx
To get around this, you will have to write a stored procedure which will accept the parameters you want to use in the like statement(s) and then call that from LINQ to SQL.
It should be noted that a few of the answers suggest using Contains. This won't work because it looks to see that the entire string matches the array element. What is being looked for is for the array element to be contained in the field itself, something like:
industry LIKE '%<element>%'
As Clark has mentioned in a comment, you could use a call to IndexOf on each element (which should translate to a SQL call):
string[] industries = { "airline", "railroad" }
var query =
from c in contacts
where
c.industry.IndexOf(industries[0]) != -1 ||
c.industry.IndexOf(industries[1]) != -1
If you know the length of the array and the number of elements, then you could hard-code this. If you don't, then you will have to create the Expression instance based on the array and the field you are looking at.