Question

I am stuck here with Linq query… I am just trying to get my hands on MVC via this very simple blog application.. I am hving these three entities

Post,
AuthorDetails,
CommentsDetails, //* in future will be adding categories, tags

i want to search using the searchterm passed into the methods, which will then search for that searchString in Post.Title, Post.Body,AuthorDetails.FirstName,AuthorDetails.LastName,CommentsDetails.Comments and waht to return something which i can cast to List<> …please have a look what i have got so far.

Code..

 public List<Post> GetPostBySearchItem(string searchString)
        {
            List<Post> getAllPostsBySearchString = (from p in ePost.Posts
                                                    join a in ePost.AuthorDetails
                                                    on p.AuthorId equals a.Id
                                                    join c in ePost.CommentsDetails
                                                    on a.Id equals c.Id
                                                    where p.Title.Contains(searchString) || p.PostBody.Contains(searchString) || a.FirstName.Contains(searchString) || c.Comments.Contains(searchString)
                                                    select p).ToList();
            return getAllPostsBySearchString;

2 question here
1) whether the join statements are correct in this code
2) and how can i return something like this select P for Posts, A for AuthoreDetails and c for CommentsDetails…

Answer 1

Your question #2: you simply have to return with “new” like this:

select new { Post = p, AuthorDetail = a, CommentDetail = c}).ToList()

instead of:

select p).ToList();

Look up Anonymous Type