Dynamic lambda parameters based on dictionary elements - c#

My plan is to create a query, but the parameters based on a Dictionary.
The Dictionary contains string key and bool value.
Can be 2 or 3 or more items in the dictionary.
Dictionary<string, bool> items = new Dictionary<string, bool>();
items.Add("CostFree", true);
items.Add("Visible", true);
items.Add("Closed", true);
This is the dictionary I am sending and based on this I want to create dynamically a query like
.Where(e => e.CostFree == true || Visible == true || Closed == true)
but the dictionary can contain 2, 3 or four items.
How can I solve this ?
Thanks in advance

LINQ expressions can be built easily via static methods exposed on System.Linq.Expressions.Expression class.
Here is a sample with your needs assuming the entity you are building the expression against named SomeClass
[TestMethod]
public void MyTestMethod()
{
var testData = new List<SomeClass>()
{
new SomeClass() {Id=1, CostFree = false, Closed='N', Visible=false},
new SomeClass() {Id=2, CostFree = true, Closed='N', Visible=false}, // expect only this one matching
};
var items = new Dictionary<string, object>();
items.Add("CostFree", true);
items.Add("Visible", true);
items.Add("Closed", 'Y');
// this one will be the "e" in "e => e.CostFree == true || Visible == true || Closed == 'Y'"
var paramExpression = Expression.Parameter(typeof(SomeClass));
// lets construct the body ("e.CostFree == true || Visible == true || Closed == 'Y'") part step-by-step
// the parts consists of binary "equals" expressions combined via logical "or" expression
var bodyExpression = (Expression)null;
foreach(var kvp in items)
{
// get the named property ("CostFree", ...) reference of paramExpression. this is the left hand side of "equals"
var propertyExpression = Expression.PropertyOrField(paramExpression, kvp.Key);
// get the constant with appropriate value to place on right hand side of "equals"
var constantExpression = Expression.Constant(kvp.Value, kvp.Value.GetType());
// combine them into "equals"
var binaryEqualsExpression = Expression.Equal(propertyExpression, constantExpression);
if (bodyExpression == null)
{
bodyExpression = binaryEqualsExpression;
}
else
{
// combine each "equals" parts with logical "or"
bodyExpression = Expression.OrElse(bodyExpression, binaryEqualsExpression);
}
}
// now construct the whole lambda...
var lambdaExpression = Expression.Lambda<Func<SomeClass, bool>>(bodyExpression, paramExpression);
// ...and make it useable in .Where()
var compiledExpression = lambdaExpression.Compile();
// lets execute in on our test data
var r = testData.Where(compiledExpression);
// only #2 should match
Assert.AreEqual(2, r.Single().Id);
}
Update:
I changed the solution:
items values are of type object
constantExpression honors the value's type.
This way the dictionary can contain other name-value pairs and the solution
still works. The rule of dictionary contents: keys must match SomeClass property names and values must match the given property's type.

The easy (but inelegant) way of doing this is to chain a series of Union statements. You can use a lookup dictionary with a key matching your strings and a value containing an appropriate predicate.
Here is an example using an extension method:
static public IQueryable<Foo> WithFlags(this IQueryable<Foo> source, string[] flags)
{
var map = new Dictionary<string, Expression<Func<Foo, bool>>>()
{
{ "Closed", x => x.Closed },
{ "CostFree", x => x.CostFree },
{ "Visible", x => x.Visible }
};
//Start with a query that returns nothing
var query = source.Where(x => false);
//For each flag supplied by the caller, add an additional set
foreach (var flag in flags)
{
query = query.Union(query.Where(map[flag]));
}
return query;
}
To use:
var results = DbContext.Foo.WithFlags( new string[] { "Closed", "Visible" }).ToList();
The more elegant way to do it is to build a predicate expression containing Or logic. This would be a little involved. I recommend finding a third party toolkit. See this answer.

Related

Add new lambda expressions using Expression Tree

I have been looking at many posts here and on the web but none of them seem to be helping.
I have a table with about 2 million records, it has over 200 columns.
A simple web service allow the user to pull a specific number of columns out of the table, the user has the option to choose which column to pull.
The result needs to be string of comma separated values, so my query needs to pull the requested columns and return a concatenate string.
I have done this using ADO.NET and pure SQL queries it works fine however I was asked to do it in Entity Framework.
Here is what I have and have done already.
I get the requested columns list as an array of strings.
The following is my query, not sure if it's the best solution or idea hence I'm asking for help here.
var valueList2 = ctx.mytable.Where(x => x.pcds == comValue).Select(x => new{temp = x.column1 +", "+ x.column2}).Select(x => x.temp).ToList();
The above gives me string of two columns separated by commas, I just need to somehow push my array of column names into the lambda part of it.
I did the following but then realised that it only works with a specific type of a class not anonymous, also I can't figure out how I can use it for a multiple columns and not make it so complex.
var createdType = typeof(mytable);
var Param = Expression.Parameter(typeof(string), "pr");
var obj = Expression.New(createdType);
var ValueProperty = createdType.GetProperty("long");
var ValueAssignment = Expression.Bind(ValueProperty, Param);
var memberInit = Expression.MemberInit(obj, ValueAssignment);
var lm = Expression.Lambda<Func<string, mytable>>(memberInit, Param);
Thank you
I'm using Dynamic Linq (source code). Sadly there is little documentation about how to use it :-) In a fun boomerang effect, there is an "evolved" version. The boomerang effect is because the code for generating the dynamic class is based on one of my responses :-) The remaining code seems to be very beautiful... And there is a full suit of unit tests with code samples!!! Note that this second library is a superset of the first library, so you can probably apply many examples to the first one! :-)
I'm adding some static methods to translate the result of a a Dynamic Linq query to a IEnumerable<object[]>.... Example code:
using (var ctx = new Model1())
{
var result = ctx.MyTable
.Take(100)
.SimpleSelect(new[] { "ID", "Col1", "Col2" })
.ToObjectArray();
foreach (var row in result)
{
Console.WriteLine(string.Join(", ", row));
}
}
More complex example:
var columnsNames = new[] { "SomeNullableInt32", "SomeNonNullableDateTimeColumn" };
// One for each column!
var formatters = new Func<object, string>[]
{
x => x != null ? x.ToString() : null,
x => ((DateTime)x).ToShortDateString()
};
var result = ctx.MyTable.Take(100).SimpleSelect(columnsNames).ToObjectArray();
foreach (var row in result)
{
var stringRow = new string[row.Length];
for (int i = 0; i < row.Length; i++)
{
stringRow[i] = formatters[i](row[i]);
}
Console.WriteLine(string.Join(", ", stringRow));
}
And the classes... One (SimpleSelect) produces the Dynamic SQL Select, and "anonymizes" the field names. I do this because for each type of return the Dynamic Linq will generate at runtime a class. This class won't be unloaded until the program ends. By anonymizing the columns (I rename them to Item1, Item2, Item3...) I increase the possibility that the same class will be reused. Note that different type of columns will generate different classes! (int Item1, string Item2 will be a different class from int Item1, DateTime Item2), the other (ToObjectArray) returns a IEnumerable<object[]>, something easier to parse.
public static class DynamicLinqTools
{
private static ConcurrentDictionary<Type, Func<object, object[]>> Converters = new ConcurrentDictionary<Type, Func<object, object[]>>();
public static IQueryable SimpleSelect(this IQueryable query, string[] fields)
{
// With a little luck, "anonymizing" the field names we should
// reduce the number of types created!
// new (field1 as Item1, field2 as Item2)
return query.Select(string.Format("new ({0})", string.Join(", ", fields.Select((x, ix) => string.Format("{0} as Item{1}", x, ix + 1)))));
}
public static IEnumerable<object[]> ToObjectArray(this IQueryable query)
{
Func<object, object[]> converter;
Converters.TryGetValue(query.ElementType, out converter);
if (converter == null)
{
var row = Expression.Parameter(typeof(object), "row");
// ElementType row2;
var row2 = Expression.Variable(query.ElementType, "row2");
// (ElementType)row;
var cast = Expression.Convert(row, query.ElementType);
// row2 = (ElementType)row;
var assign = Expression.Assign(row2, cast);
var properties = query.ElementType.GetProperties(BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance)
.Where(x => x.CanRead && x.GetIndexParameters().Length == 0)
.ToArray();
// (object)row2.Item1, (object)row2.Item2, ...
var properties2 = Array.ConvertAll(properties, x => Expression.Convert(Expression.Property(row2, x), typeof(object)));
// new object[] { row2.Item1, row2.Item2 }
var array = Expression.NewArrayInit(typeof(object), properties2);
// row2 = (ElementType)row; (return) new object[] { row2.Item1, row2.Item2 }
var body = Expression.Block(typeof(object[]), new[] { row2 }, assign, array);
var exp = Expression.Lambda<Func<object, object[]>>(body, row);
converter = exp.Compile();
Converters.TryAdd(query.ElementType, converter);
}
foreach (var row in query)
{
yield return converter(row);
}
}
}
This is a short and easy answer for whoever needs a different answer, but per our discussion with #xanatos, it's not the best as it also returns all the columns which need to be cut off before adding to a list of strings.
List<string> valueList = new List<string>();
using (var ctx = new DataEntities1())
{
var query = ctx.myTable.Where(x => x.pcds == scode).SingleOrDefault();
foreach (var item in columnsArray)
{
valueList.Add(typeof(myTable).GetProperty(onsColumns[Convert.ToInt32(item)]).GetValue(query).ToString());
}
}

LINQ - Where Clause using Contains

I have a LINQ statement that I need to do a "contains" with, but also need some sort of loop.
The format of the data is as follows:
x.Product_Name = "product[x], product[y], product[z]"
As user selects multiple items from a list to search on.
I need to find anything within Product_Name that was selected from the user.
var names = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<IEnumerable<string>>
(criteria.value).ToArray();
This line gets the items a user selected from the list and stores them in an array.
query = query.Where(x => names.contains(x.Product_Name))
Doesn't work because Product_Name is a flattened out version of products, so I can't do this.
What I need is something like the following:
foreach (string s in names)
{
projectsQuery = projectsQuery.Where(x => x.Product_Name.Contains(s));
}
But when the SQL is created for the above, it uses an AND conditional instead of an OR conditional. I need to find any instances where string s is contained within the Product_Name.
You can achieve it by creating Expression tree manually. Although it is kind of hard to manage code.
var containsMethod = typeof(string).GetMethod("Contains", new[] { typeof(string) });
var xParameter = Expression.Parameter(typeof(x), "x");
var searchexpression = new stack<expression>();
foreach (string s in names)
{
var containsmethodexp = expression.call(Expression.Property(xParameter, "Product_Name", containsMethod, expression.constant(s));
if (searchexpression.count == 0)
{
searchexpression.push(containsmethodexp);
}
else
{
searchexpression.push(expression.orelse(containsmethodexp, searchexpression.pop()));
}
}
var finalResult = projectsQuery.Where(Expression.Lambda<Func<x, bool>>(searchexpression.pop(), new ParameterExpression[] { xParameter }));
here x is your Entity Name

Expression builder for deep property comparison

I was looking at a simple rule engine http://netmatze.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/building-a-rule-engine-in-c/ and I'm doing something very similar to this. I have two classes that look like:
class A
{
public List<B> ListB { get; set; }
}
Class B
{
public int ID { get; set; }
}
With my rule set looking like:
List<Rule> rules = new List<Rule>{
new Rule("listB", ExpressionType.Loop, 1, "ID")
};
I'm trying to build the expression to basically look at class A property listB, loop it camparing each item's ID property to see if at least one equals 1. I'm having trouble on how to do this. I currently have something like (I have hard coded values set in this, but it will eventually be changed to be generic as much as possible). This expression does not work, I get compile exceptions:
var parameterExpression = Expression.Parameter(typeof(A));
var listB = MemberExpression.Property(parameterExpression, "ListB");
var leftOperand = MemberExpression.Property(Expression.Parameter(typeof(B)), "ID");
var rightOperand = Expression.Constant(1); //1
var found = Expression.Variable(typeof(bool), "found");
return Expression.Lambda<Func<T, bool>>(
Expression.Block(
listB,
found,
Expression.Loop(
Expression.Block(
Expression.IfThen(
Expression.Equal(
leftOperand,
rightOperand
),//equal
Expression.Assign(
found,
Expression.Constant(true)
)//set to true
)
)//block
)//loop
),
A
).Compile();
I'll end up calling the rule set against my object like so:
Engine ruleEngine = new Engine();
var compiledRules = rules.Select(r => ruleEngine.CompileRule<A>(r)).ToList();
var result = compiledRules.All(rule => rule(objA));
My questions are:
How do I get this function to return true/false if any of the list
items matched the condition.
How do you prevent the Expression.Loop
to stop looping once all list items are compared (and none of them
matched)?
Thanks for any help.
Why use a loop? You wouldn't use a loop if you were coding the check in C#. You'd use Enumerable.Any. So generate the following expression:
A a;
return a.ListB.Any(b => b.ID == 1);
This is translated to:
A a;
return Enumerable.Any(a.ListB, b => b.ID == 1);
This is easily translatable to expression trees.
Following your last comment it sounds like you could use the approach i suggested for another question. Replace this part:
var childProperty = parameter.Type.GetProperty(properties[0]);
var left = Expression.Property(parameter, childProperty);
var right = Expression.Constant(test, typeof(int));
navigationPropertyPredicate = Expression.Equal(left, right);
resultExpression = MakeLambda(parameter, navigationPropertyPredicate);
with something using your ruleOperator and value

Compare Lists of same class

I have two lists I would like to compare them for updated/modified columns.
Compare 2 Lists of the same class and show the different values in a new list
I would like to do this using linq. The only problem is I am dealing with a lot of columns, over excess of 30 columns in each. Any suggestions would be of great help...
//In Dal
List<PartnerAndPartnerPositionEntity> GetAllPartnerAndPartnerPositionOldDB(int modelId);
List<PartnerAndPartnerPositionEntity> GetAllPartnerAndPartnerPosition(int modelId);
//BL
//get from new db
var list1= _partnerDAL.GetAllPartnerAndPartnerPosition(modelId);
//get from old db
var list2= _partnerDAL.GetAllPartnerAndPartnerPositionOldDB(modelId);
Let's assume that:
PartnerAndPartnerPositionEntity class contains a property named Id that represents the unique key of an item
Given the above you can:
Get all properties of your type
var properties = typeof(PartnerAndPartnerPositionEntity).GetProperties();
Join the two lists on the Id property and iterate through the properties to see which one has changed:
var list = list1.Join(list2,
x => x.Id,
y => y.Id,
(x, y) => Tuple.Create(x, y))
.ToList();
list.Foreach(tuple =>
{
foreach(var propertyInfo in properties)
{
var value1 = propertyInfo.GetValue(tuple.Item1, null);
var value2 = propertyInfo.GetValue(tuple.Item2, null);
if(value1 != value2)
Console.WriteLine("Item with id {0} has different values for property {1}.",
tuple.Item1,Id, propertyInfo.Name);
}
});
Well, if you want to avoid doing it the boring and tedious way, you need to use reflection to dynamically get the class members then get their values for each instance.
See C# Reflection - Get field values from a simple class for the code.
There...this will generate new IL!
public static class EqualityHelper
{
private ConcurrentDictionary<Type, object> _cache = new ConcurrentDictionary<Type, object>();
public bool AreEqual<T>(T left, T right)
{
var equality = (Func<T,T,bool>)_cache.GetOrAdd(typeof(T), CreateEquality<T>());
return equality(left, right);
}
private Func<T, T, bool> CreateEquality<T>()
{
var left = Expression.Parameter(typeof(T));
var right = Expression.Parameter(typeof(T));
var properties = from x in typeof(T).GetProperties()
where x.GetIndexParameters().Any() == false
select x;
var expressions = from p in properties
select Expression.Equal(
Expression.Property(left, p),
Expression.Property(right, p));
var body = expressions.Aggregate(Expression.AndAlso);
var lambda = Expression.Lambda<Func<T,T,bool>>(body, new [] {left, right});
return lambda.Compile();
}
}

PredicateBuilder returning zero records

I'm using PredicateBuilder to create a dynamic Where clause to query data from a DataTable. I have a Dictionary that contains my column names and values I need to search for. I'm simply iterating over the dictionary, if the key matches a column name, then add that key and value to the predicate. Everything seems to work fine until the actual query is run against the datatable, I get zero records back:( But if I replace the dynamic predicate with something like p => p["Year"] == "2010", I get records back. Here's the code:
var objectList = table.AsEnumerable();
Func<DataRow, bool> predicate = GetPredicate(parms, table.Columns);
var list1 = objectList.Where(predicate).ToList();
private static Func<DataRow, bool> GetPredicate(Dictionary <string, string> parms, DataColumnCollection dataColumnCollection)
{
var predicate = PredicateBuilder.False<DataRow>();
foreach (var parm in parms)
{
if (dataColumnCollection.Contains(parm.Key))
{
var copy = parm;
predicate = predicate.And(p => p[copy.Key] == copy.Value);
}
}
return predicate.Compile();
}
Any help would be greatly appreciated:)
You're starting with false and then adding and clauses.
false && ... always returns false, so your Where clause will never match anything.
Try starting with:
var predicate = PredicateBuilder.True<DataRow>();
ALSO:
You are closing over a loop variable, which means all your predicates will use the last parm in parms.
You can fix this by creating a local copy in your loop:
foreach( var parm in parms )
{
if (dataColumnCollection.Contains(parm.Key))
{
var copy = parm;
predicate = predicate.And( p => p[ copy.Key ] == copy.Value );
}
UPDATE:
DataRow[ key ] is of type object, so in p[ copy.Key ] == copy.Value, the equality operator is object reference equality, not string equality.
You can fix this by specifying String.Equals:
predicate = predicate.And( p => String.Equals( p[ copy.Key ], copy.Value ) );
Interestingly, this example shows that you can have multiple instances of string with the same contents.

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