Question

I need to do a query on my database that might be something like this where there could realistically be 100 or more search terms.

public IQueryable<Address> GetAddressesWithTown(string[] towns)
{
    IQueryable<Address> addressQuery = DbContext.Addresses;
    addressQuery.Where( x => towns.Any( y=> x.Town == y ) );
    return addressQuery;
}

However when it contains more than about 15 terms it throws and exception on execution because the SQL generated is too long.

Can this kind of query be done through Entity Framework?

What other options are there available to complete a query like this?

Answer 1

Sorry, are we talking about THIS EXACT SQL?

In that case it is a very simple “open your eyes thing”.

There is a way (contains) to map that string into an IN Clause, that results in ONE sql condition (town in (”,”,”))

Let me see whether I get this right:

addressQuery.Where( x => towns.Any( y=> x.Town == y ) );

should be

addressQuery.Where ( x => towns.Contains (x.Town)

The resulting SQL will be a LOT smaller. 100 items is still taxing it – I would dare saying you may have a db or app design issue here and that requires a business side analysis, I have not me this requirement in 20 years I work with databases.