Is there a way to use a LINQ expression to request a Count query from the Netflix oData service in Silverlight 4?
The Netflix documentation shows that you can return counts by appending $count to a request for a collection, but a URL like this:
http://netflix.cloudapp.net/Catalog/Genres/$count
Is not generated from an expression like this:
var count = (from g in catalog.Genres select g).Count();
The above code returns an error saying that the Count method is not supported. Is there a way to do this in LINQ, or do I just need to make WebClient request to get the value?
Count and LongCount are not supported in Silverligth because they require a synchornous execution of the query. Since Silverlight requires all network operations to by asynchronous this is not possible.
You can either issue the HTTP query in question programatically not using DataServiceContext (or related classes), since the $count returns a text representation of the number, parsing the response is not that hard.
Or you can use a bit of a trick. You can use IncludeTotalCount() to add $inlinecount=allpages query option to the query which will include the count in the response. Then to not download all the entities from server, you can use Take(0) which will add $top=0 and thus return empty result set. But the inline count will still contain the right number.
You can access the inline count on the QueryOperationResponse.TotalCount property.
Something like this:
NetflixCatalog ctx = new NetflixCatalog(new Uri("http://netflix.cloudapp.net/Catalog"));
var q = (DataServiceQuery<Genre>)ctx.Genres.IncludeTotalCount().Take(0);
q.BeginExecute((ar) =>
{
QueryOperationResponse<Genre> r = (QueryOperationResponse<Genre>)q.EndExecute(ar);
r.TotalCount.ToString(); // Use the count in whatever way you need
}, null);
It works in LinqPad 4 using C# 4.0
var count = (from g in Genres select g).Count();
count.Dump();
Result: 518
In LinqPad 2 using C# 3.0 the error appears.
Related
I am using LinqPad to test my query. This query works when the LInqPad connection is to my database (LInq to SQL) but it does not work when I change the connection to use my Entity Framework 5 Model.dll. (Linq to Entity). This is in C#.
I have two tables called Plan and PlanDetails. Relationship is one Plan to many PlanDetails.
var q = from pd in PlanDetails
select new {
pd.PlanDetailID,
ThePlanName = (from p in this.Plans
where p.PlanID == pd.PlanID
select p.PlanName)
};
var results = q.ToList();
q.Dump(); //This is a linqpad method to output the result.
I get this error "NotSupportedException: Unable to create a constant value of type 'Domain.Data.Plan'. Only primitive types or enumeration types are supported in this context." Any ideas why this only works with Linq to SQL?
basically it means you are using some complex datatype inside the query for comparison.
in your case i suspect from p in this.Plans where p.PlanID == pd.PlanID is the culprit.
And it depends on DataProvider. It might work for Sql Data Provider, but not for SqlCE data Provider and so on.
what you should do is to convert your this.Plans collection into a primitive type collection containing only the Ids i.e.
var integers = PlanDetails.Plans.Select(s=>s.Id).ToList();
and then use this list inside.
var q = from pd in PlanDetails
select new {
pd.PlanDetailID,
ThePlanName = (from p in integers
where p == pd.PlanID
select pd.PlanName)
};
I got this error when i was trying to null check for a navigational property in the entity framework expression
I resolved it by not using the not null check in the expression and just using Any() function only.
protected Expression<Func<Entities.Employee, bool>> BriefShouldAppearInSearchResults(
IQueryable<Entities.Employee> briefs, string username)
{
var trimmedUsername = NameHelper.GetFormattedName(username);
Expression<Func<Entities.Employee, bool>> filterExpression = cse =>
cse.Employee.Cars.All(c =>
c.Employee.Cars!=null && <--Removing this line resolved my issue
c.Employee.Cars.Any(cur => cur.CarMake =="Benz")));
return filterExpression;
}
Hope this helps someone!
This is a Linqpad bug if you like (or a peculiarity). I found similar behaviour myself. Like me, you may find that your query works with an ObjectContext, but not a DbContext. (And it works in Visual Studio).
I think it has to do with Linqpad's inner structure. It adds MergeAs (AppendOnly) to collections and the context is a UserQuery, which probably contains some code that causes this bug.
This is confirmed by the fact that the code does work when you create a new context instance in the Linqpad code and run the query against this instance.
If the relationship already exists.
Why not simply say.
var q = from pd in PlanDetails
select new {
pd.PlanDetailID,
ThePlanName = pd.Plan.PlanName
};
Of course i'm assuming that every PlanDetail will belong to a Plan.
Update
To get better results from LinqPad you could tell it to use your own assembly (which contains your DbContext) instead of the default Datacontext it uses.
I'd like to use an action filter to translate an Odata uri to a Linq expression. I'm doing this because i'm using the resulting expression to query nonSQL line of business systems. In the WCF web api this was trivial because the translated query was appended as a property of the the request object, as such:
var query = (EnumerableQuery)request.Properties["queryToCompose"];
That seems to have disappeared. Are there any public api's i can use to accomplish this?
I've been trying something similiar.. While not perfect, you can grab the OData expressions directly from the query string and build the LINQ expression manually:
var queryParams = HttpUtility.ParseQueryString( ControllerContext.Request.RequestUri.Query );
var top = queryParams.Get( "$top" );
var skip = queryParams.Get( "$skip" );
var orderby = queryParams.Get( "$orderby" );
And the apply that directly to your IQueryable or whatever you're using for the filtering. Not nearly as useful, but its a start.
So as it turns out the query has changed keys in the request property collection. It also seems that the internal filter that parses the query runs after the custom filters and thus doesn't add the query value. To get the translated query, call the following inside the controller action.
(EnumerableQuery<T>)this.Request.Properties["MS_QueryKey"];
Check out Linq2Rest. It solves this problem.
I'm using NHibernate 3.2 and I have a repository method that looks like:
public IEnumerable<MyModel> GetActiveMyModel()
{
return from m in Session.Query<MyModel>()
where m.Active == true
select m;
}
Which works as expected. However, sometimes when I use this method I want to filter it further:
var models = MyRepository.GetActiveMyModel();
var filtered = from m in models
where m.ID < 100
select new { m.Name };
Which produces the same SQL as the first one and the second filter and select must be done after the fact. I thought the whole point in LINQ is that it formed an expression tree that was unravelled when it's needed and therefore the correct SQL for the job could be created, saving my database requests.
If not, it means all of my repository methods have to return exactly what is needed and I can't make use of LINQ further down the chain without taking a penalty.
Have I got this wrong?
Updated
In response to the comment below: I omitted the line where I iterate over the results, which causes the initial SQL to be run (WHERE Active = 1) and the second filter (ID < 100) is obviously done in .NET.
Also, If I replace the second chunk of code with
var models = MyRepository.GetActiveMyModel();
var filtered = from m in models
where m.Items.Count > 0
select new { m.Name };
It generates the initial SQL to retrieve the active records and then runs a separate SQL statement for each record to find out how many Items it has, rather than writing something like I'd expect:
SELECT Name
FROM MyModel m
WHERE Active = 1
AND (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM Items WHERE MyModelID = m.ID) > 0
You are returning IEnumerable<MyModel> from the method, which will cause in-memory evaluation from that point on, even if the underlying sequence is IQueryable<MyModel>.
If you want to allow code after GetActiveMyModel to add to the SQL query, return IQueryable<MyModel> instead.
You're running IEnumerable's extension method "Where" instead of IQueryable's. It will still evaluate lazily and give the same output, however it evaluates the IQueryable on entry and you're filtering the collection in memory instead of against the database.
When you later add an extra condition on another table (the count), it has to lazily fetch each and every one of the Items collections from the database since it has already evaluated the IQueryable before it knew about the condition.
(Yes, I would also like to be the extensive extension methods on IEnumerable to instead be virtual members, but, alas, they're not)
IQueryable<double?> query = (from t in ctx.MyList orderby t.MyNums select t.MyNums).Take(1);
IQueryable<double> q2 = query.Cast<double>();
IEnumerator<double> enumerator = q2.GetEnumerator();
while (enumerator.MoveNext())
{
double d = enumerator.Current;
return System.Convert.ToInt32(d);
}
The context for the above code is that I'm attempting to get the greatest integer value from a SharePoint list column. SharePoint seems to treat all list item values as "Number" so that's the reason that I initially had "double?" and not "int?". How could I write that query better? Also, at the moment, it doesn't work at all.. it says "Can only specify query options (orderby, where, take, skip) after last navigation." What does that mean? Thanks..
Additional Information e.g. "Why Max() doesn't work in SharePoint Web Services"
Go to the following link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd673933.aspx. The note contained there says the following:
The set of queries expressible in the LINQ syntax is broader than those enabled in the representational state transfer (REST)-based URI syntax that is used by data services. A NotSupportedException is raised when the query cannot be mapped to a URI in the target data service.
Did you try using Max instead?
double max = ctx.MyList.Max(t => t.MyNums);
return (int) max;
Don't forget to check for a null value in case all items in the list are null
return (int)(ctx.MyList.Max(x => x.MyNums) ?? 0);
Suppose I have a table Person(PersonID, Name, ....). Then I use EF to create a Entity model and then create DomainService based on Ria Service. At client side(sliverlight), I try to create a dynamic linq for filter function. What I did is:
q = EntityQuery<MyData.Person>
q = q.Where(p=> p.Name.Contains(NameVar));
That is fine. Then I have another two tables for phone:
Phone(PhoneID, PhoneNumber, ...)
PersonPhone(PersonID, PhoneID, ...)
Then I want to add filter to match PhoneNumber. How to write the linq query q like?
q = q.Where(p => p.PersonPhone.
Where(ph=>ph.PhoneNumber.Contains(PhoneVar)&& ph.PersonID == p.PersonID).Count()>0);
I can pass the compiliation, but when run the app, I got error:
Query operator 'Count' is not supported
How to resolve this problem?
This sounds like a good scenario for writing a custom query method on the server and invoking that method instead of the default query for Person. RIA Services only supports a subset of LINQ operations on the client, but you can use all LINQ operators on the server.
You need to use the QueryBuilder
Here's a sample
var qb = new QueryBuilder<Person>().Where(p => p.PersonPhone.Where(ph=>ph.PhoneNumber.Contains(PhoneVar)&& ph.PersonID == p.PersonID).Count()>0);
Then you can take qb and apply it to whatever query you like.
query = qb.ApplyTo(query);
By using Func<QueryBuilder<Person>> you can pass around your dynamic filter into common controls and etc. And when you invoke the function you'll get the current values from that ViewModel.