Question

Hi,

I need to let the enduser type search strings like :

Volvo S70 OR S60 > All posts that contins Volvo OR S70 OR S60

Volvo S70 NOT S60 > All posts that contains Volvo and S70 but not S60

“Volvo S70” > All posts that includes “Volvo S70” as one string

Volvo S* > All posts that contains Volvo and a word starting with S

“Volvo S70” “Volvo S60” V* > All posts that contains “Volvo S70” or “Volvo S60” Or a word starting on V

Vo*l* S* > * is treated as wildcards so in this case posts that contains Vo*l* or S*

This is just a small part off possible combinations.

How do I handle this with Linq to Object?

I Know that I can use StartsWith, EndsWith, Contains but this will mean that I have to split the incoming search string, is this the only way? And how do I then handle strings like Vo*l*?

BestRegards

Edit1: The data have been fetched from database with entityframework, this means that the data is now in application (List)

Answer 1

My solution is to use ESQL like this :

using (Entities context = new Entities())
      {
IQueryable<Ad> ads = context.CreateQuery<Ad>("SELECT VALUE C FROM Ads AS C WHERE C.Title LIKE @searchS OR C.Description LIKE @searchS", new ObjectParameter("searchS", searchS));

            ads = ads.Where(c => c.InactivatedDate.HasValue == inactive);
            ads = ads.Where(c => c.PublishedDate.HasValue && c.PublishedDate.Value.CompareTo(fetchAdsTo.Value) >= 1);

            output = ads.ToList();
}