linq (to nhibernate) where clause on dynamic property in sql - linq

My entity has a property which is derived from other properties
public class MyClass
{
public DateTime Deadline { get; set; }
public Severity Severity
{
return (DateTime.Now - Deadline < new TimeSpan(5, 0, 0, 0)) ? Severity.High : Severity.Low;
}
}
is there a way I can modify the following
return repository.Query().Where(myClass => myClass.Severity == High);
so that the where clause evaluates in sql rather than in code?
I tried to do something like this, but to no avail
public class MyClass
{
public DateTime Deadline { get; set; }
public Func<MyClass, bool> SeverityFunc = (DateTime.Now - Deadline < new TimeSpan(5, 0, 0, 0)) ? Severity.High : Severity.Low;
public Severity Severity
{
return SeverityFunc.Invoke(this);
}
}
return repository.Query().Where(myClass => myClass.SeverityFunc(myclass) == High);
I'm guessing because the func cant be evaluated to SQL. Is there some other way to do this without ending up with duplicate calculations for severity
Any help appreciated, ta
Edit: This is a simplified version of what im trying to do, i'm looking for answers that cover the theory of this rather than a specific fix (though still welcome). Im interested in whats possible, and best practices to achieve this sort of thing.
Andrew

I have used something similar on a mapper. Make sure to wrap the Func on on Expr, like:
public Expr<Func<MyClass, bool>> SeverityFunc ...
By wrapping it with expr linq2sql will be able to look at the full expression and translate appropiately. I haven't used it as part of a class instance like the one you have, so I am not sure how that would affect it.
Regarding on where to put it, I had to move on the last time I worked on a similar scenario, in my case it ended up in the mapper, but mostly because it was more a mapping concern from an awfully database schema than domain logic. I didn't even had the property dynamically calculated on the domain entity for that matter (a different scenario for sure).

One option is the LINQ Dynamic Query Library, See http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/01/07/dynamic-linq-part-1-using-the-linq-dynamic-query-library.aspx
Another option is to use the PredicateBuilder from http://www.albahari.com/nutshell/predicatebuilder.aspx
Hope this answers your question,
Roelof.

Related

Better way to handle this code

I am working on a MVC3 application with nhibernate and SQL server. Have written a normal method which is re-usable. Please find the below code and let me know a better way to handle it. I have observed to execute this piece of code it is taking a long time.
private void GetParentCompany(IEnumerable<Company> companiesList)
{
foreach (var company in companiesList)
{
long? dunsUltimateParent = company.DUNSUltimateParent;
Company ultimateParent = _companyService.GetCompanyByDUNS(Convert.ToInt64(dunsUltimateParent));
if (ultimateParent != null)
{
company.UltimateParentName = ultimateParent.CompanyName;
company.UltimateCompanyId = ultimateParent.CompanyId;
company.UltimateParentDuns = ultimateParent.DUNS;
}
}
}
Adding an index to your company.DUNS column might help. However consider to introduce a many-to-one relationship from company to (parent) company.
Place a UltimateParent property with type company in the company class. The fields UltimateParentName and UltimateParentDuns would then be redundant and you could simply get company.UltimateParent.Name for example. The mapping of UltimateParent can be done using 'References' in fluent-nhibernate.
References(x => x.UltimateParent);

How do I use a custom comparer with the Linq Distinct method?

I was reading a book about Linq, and saw that the Distinct method has an overload that takes a comparer. This would be a good solution to a problem I have where I want to get the distinct entities from a collection, but want the comparison to be on the entity ID, even if the other properties are different.
According to the book, if I have a Gribulator entity, I should be able to create a comparer like this...
private class GribulatorComparer : IComparer<Gribulator> {
public int Compare(Gribulator g1, Gribulator g2) {
return g1.ID.CompareTo(g2.ID);
}
}
...and then use it like this...
List<Gribulator> distinctGribulators
= myGribulators.Distinct(new GribulatorComparer()).ToList();
However, this gives the following compiler errors...
'System.Collections.Generic.List' does not contain a definition for 'Distinct' and the best extension method overload 'System.Linq.Enumerable.Distinct(System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable, System.Collections.Generic.IEqualityComparer)' has some invalid arguments
Argument 2: cannot convert from 'LinqPlayground.Program.GribulatorComparer' to 'System.Collections.Generic.IEqualityComparer'
I've searched around a bit, and have seen plenty of examples that use code like this, but no complaints about compiler errors.
What am I doing wrong? Also, is this the best way of doing this? I want a one-off solution here, so don't want to start changing the code for the entity itself. I want the entity to remain as normal, but just in this one place, compare by ID only.
Thanks for any help.
You're implementing your comparer as an IComparer<T>, the LINQ method overload requires an implementation of IEqualityComparer:
private class GribulatorComparer : IEqualityComparer<Gribulator> {
public bool Equals(Gribulator g1, Gribulator g2) {
return g1.ID == g2.ID;
}
}
edit:
For clarification, the IComparer interface can be used for sorting, as that's basically what the Compare() method does.
Like this:
items.OrderBy(x => new ItemComparer());
private class ItemComparer : IComparer<Item>
{
public int Compare(Item x, Item y)
{
return x.Id.CompareTo(y.Id)
}
}
Which will sort your collection using that comparer, however LINQ provides a way to do that for simple fields (like an int Id).
items.OrderBy(x => x.Id);

Entity Framework 4.1 simple dynamic expression for object.property = value

I know there is a way to use Expressions and Lambdas to accomplish this but I having a hard time piecing it all together. All I need is a method that will dynamically query an Entity Framework DBSet object to find the row where the propery with the given name matches the value.
My context:
public class MyContext : DbContext
{
public IDbSet<Account> Accoounts{ get { return Set<Account>(); } }
}
The method that I'm looking to write:
public T Get<T>(string property, object value) : where T is Account
{...}
I would rather not have to use Dynamic SQL to accomplish this so no need to suggest it because I already know it's possible. What I'm really looking for is some help to accomplish this using Expressions and Lambdas
Thanks in advance, I know it's brief but it should be pretty self-explanatory. Comment if more info is needed
I'm trying to avoid dynamic linq as much as possible because the main point of linq is strongly typed access. Using dynamic linq is a solution but it is exactly the oppose of the linq purpose and it is quite close to using ESQL and building the query from sting concatenation. Anyway dynamic linq is sometimes real time saver (especially when it comes to complex dynamic ordering) and I successfully use it in a large project with Linq-to-Sql.
What I usually do is defining some SearchCriteria class like:
public class SearchCriteria
{
public string Property1 { get; set; }
public int? Property2 { get; set; }
}
And helper query extension method like:
public static IQueryable<SomeClass> Filter(this IQueryable<SomeClass> query, SearchCriteria filter)
{
if (filter.Property1 != null) query = query.Where(s => s.Property1 == filter.Property1);
if (filter.Property2 != null) query = query.Where(s => s.Property2 == filter.Property2);
return query;
}
It is not generic solution. Again generic solution is for some strongly typed processing of classes sharing some behavior.
The more complex solution would be using predicate builder and build expression tree yourselves but again building expression tree is only more complex way to build ESQL query by concatenating strings.
Here's my implementation:
public T Get<T>(string property, object value) : where T is Account
{
//p
var p = Expression.Parameter(typeof(T));
//p.Property
var propertyExpression = Expression.Property(p, property);
//p.Property == value
var equalsExpression = Expression.Equal(propertyExpression, Expression.Constant(value));
//p => p.Property == value
var lambda = Expression.Lambda<Func<T,bool>>(equalsExpression, p);
return context.Set<T>().SingleOrDefault(lambda);
}
It uses EF 5's Set<T>() method. If you are using a lower version, you'll need to implement a way of getting the DbSet based on the <T> type.
Hope it helps.
Dynamic Linq may be an option. Specify your criteria as a string and it will get built as an expression and ran against your data;
An example from something I have done;
var context = new DataContext(ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["c"].ConnectionString);
var statusConditions = "Status = 1";
var results = (IQueryable)context.Contacts.Where(statusConditions);
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/01/07/dynamic-linq-part-1-using-the-linq-dynamic-query-library.aspx

Using an IEqualityComparer with a LINQ to Entities Except clause

I have an entity that I'd like to compare with a subset and determine to select all except the subset.
So, my query looks like this:
Products.Except(ProductsToRemove(), new ProductComparer())
The ProductsToRemove() method returns a List<Product> after it performs a few tasks. So in it's simplest form it's the above.
The ProductComparer() class looks like this:
public class ProductComparer : IEqualityComparer<Product>
{
public bool Equals(Product a, Product b)
{
if (ReferenceEquals(a, b)) return true;
if (ReferenceEquals(a, null) || ReferenceEquals(b, null))
return false;
return a.Id == b.Id;
}
public int GetHashCode(Product product)
{
if (ReferenceEquals(product, null)) return 0;
var hashProductId = product.Id.GetHashCode();
return hashProductId;
}
}
However, I continually receive the following exception:
LINQ to Entities does not recognize
the method
'System.Linq.IQueryable1[UnitedOne.Data.Sql.Product]
Except[Product](System.Linq.IQueryable1[UnitedOne.Data.Sql.Product],
System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable1[UnitedOne.Data.Sql.Product],
System.Collections.Generic.IEqualityComparer1[UnitedOne.Data.Sql.Product])'
method, and this method cannot be
translated into a store expression.
Linq to Entities isn't actually executing your query, it is interpreting your code, converting it to TSQL, then executing that on the server.
Under the covers, it is coded with the knowledge of how operators and common functions operate and how those relate to TSQL. The problem is that the developers of L2E have no idea how exactly you are implementing IEqualityComparer. Therefore they cannot figure out that when you say Class A == Class B you mean (for example) "Where Person.FirstName == FirstName AND Person.LastName == LastName".
So, when the L2E interpreter hits a method it doesn't recognize, it throws this exception.
There are two ways you can work around this. First, develop a Where() that satisfies your equality requirements but that doesn't rely on any custom method. In other words, test for equality of properties of the instance rather than an Equals method defined on the class.
Second, you can trigger the execution of the query and then do your comparisons in memory. For instance:
var notThisItem = new Item{Id = "HurrDurr"};
var items = Db.Items.ToArray(); // Sql query executed here
var except = items.Except(notThisItem); // performed in memory
Obviously this will bring much more data across the wire and be more memory intensive. The first option is usually the best.
You're trying to convert the Except call with your custom IEqualityComparer into Entity SQL.
Obviously, your class cannot be converted into SQL.
You need to write Products.AsEnumerable().Except(ProductsToRemove(), new ProductComparer()) to force it to execute on the client. Note that this will download all of the products from the server.
By the way, your ProductComparer class should be a singleton, like this:
public class ProductComparer : IEqualityComparer<Product> {
private ProductComparer() { }
public static ProductComparer Instance = new ProductComparer();
...
}
The IEqualityComparer<T> can only be executed locally, it can't be translated to a SQL command, hence the error

SubSonic 3 ActiveRecord generated code with warnings

While using SubSonic 3 with ActiveRecord T4 templates, the generated code shows many warnings about CLS-compliance, unused items, and lack of GetHashCode() implementation.
In order to avoid them, I did the following modifications:
// Structs.tt
[CLSCompliant(false)] // added
public class <#=tbl.CleanName#>Table: DatabaseTable
{ ...
// ActiveRecord.tt
[CLSCompliant(false)] // added
public partial class <#=tbl.ClassName#>: IActiveRecord
{
#region Built-in testing
#pragma warning disable 0169 // added
static IList<<#=tbl.ClassName#>> TestItems;
#pragma warning restore 0169 // added
...
public override Int32 GetHashCode() // added
{
return this.KeyValue().GetHashCode();
}
...
Is there a better way to get rid of the warnings? Or a better GetHashCode() implementation?
Currently, the only way to get rid of the warnings is to update your t4 templates and submit a bug/fix to Rob. Or wait until somebody else does.
As for the GetHashCode implementation, I don't think you're going to find a good way to do this through templates. Hash code generation is very dependent on what state your object contains. And people with lots of letters after their name work long and hard to come up with hash code algorithms that are fast and return results with low chances of collision. Doing this from within a template that may generate a class with millions of different permutations of the state it may hold is a tall order to fill.
Probably the best thing Rob could have done would be to provide a default implementation that calls out to a partial method, checks the result and returns it if found. Here's an example:
public partial class Foo
{
public override int GetHashCode()
{
int? result = null;
TryGetHashCode(ref result);
if (result.HasValue)
return result.Value;
return new Random().Next();
}
partial void TryGetHashCode(ref int? result);
}
public partial class Foo
{
partial void TryGetHashCode(ref int? result)
{
result = 5;
}
}
If you compile this without the implementation of TryGetHashCode, the compiler completely omits the call to TryGetHashCode and you go from the declaration of result to the check to see if it has value, which it never will, so the default implementation of the hash code is returned.
I wanted a quick solution for this as well. The version that I am using does generate GetHashCode for tables that have a primary key that is a single int.
As our simple tables use text as their primary keys this didn't work out of the box. So I made the following change to the template near line 273 in ActiveRecord.tt
<# if(tbl.PK.SysType=="int"){#>
public override int GetHashCode() {
return this.<#=tbl.PK.CleanName #>;
}
<# }#>
<# else{#>
public override int GetHashCode() {
throw new NotImplementedException();
}
<# }#>
This way GetHashCode is generated for all the tables and stops the warnings, but will throw an exception if called (which we aren't).
We use this is for a testing application, not a website or anything like that, and this approach may not be valid for many situations.

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