Question

I want to create dynamic lambda expressions so that I can filter a list using a set of filtering parameters. This is what I have so far:

The expression is built using the methods bellow, where T is the object type of the list

    public static Expression<Func<T, bool>> GetExpression<T>(IList<DynamicFilter> filters)
    {
        if (filters.Count == 0)
            return null;

        ParameterExpression param = Expression.Parameter(typeof(T), "t");
        Expression exp = null;

        if (filters.Count == 1)
            exp = GetExpression<T>(param, filters[0]);

        [...]

        return Expression.Lambda<Func<T, bool>>(exp, param);
    }

    private static Expression GetExpression<T>(ParameterExpression param, DynamicFilter filter)
    {
        MemberExpression member = Expression.Property(param, filter.PropertyName);
        ConstantExpression constant = Expression.Constant(filter.Value);

        [...]

        return Expression.Call(member, filterMethod, constant);
    }

I then call

List<Example> list = ...;
var deleg = ExpressionBuilder.GetExpression<Example>(dynFiltersList).Compile();
list = list.Where(deleg).ToList();

This works just as expected with an object that contains only simple types, but if there are complex types inside, the code doesn’t work anymore. For example, let’s say I have a member of custom type Field inside the Example class and Field has a string property Value. If filter.PropertyName would be ‘Field0’ (of type Field), the code would work just fine, but if I have ‘Field0.Value’ I would get an obvious error stating that there is no property named ‘Field0.Value’ inside class Example.

I tried modifying the expression building method, like this:

        MemberExpression member = null;
        if (filter.PropertyName.Contains('.'))
        {
            string[] props = filter.PropertyName.Split('.');

            ParameterExpression param1 = Expression.Parameter(typeof(T).GetProperty(props[0]).PropertyType, "t1");
            member = Expression.Property(param1, props[0]);
        }
        else
        {
            member = Expression.Property(param, filter.PropertyName);
        }

but then I got a Lambda parameter not in scope error when compiling the expression. I sort of understand why I get this error, but I don’t know how to make this work.

Bottom line is I need to make the expression building method work recursively when forming the MemberExpression. I ultimately need to obtain a list = list.Where(deleg).ToList(); that translates to something like this list = list.Where(obj => obj.Field0.Value == 'something').ToList();

I’ve just started working with expressions so I don’t really know too much in this area, but any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Answer 1

I realize this is a fairly old post, but I had the exact same problem and found something close in an answer that Mark Gravell posted here. I just modified it slightly to meet my needs and below is the result:

    private Expression GetDeepProperty(Expression parameter, string property)
    {
        var props = property.Split('.');
        var type = parameter.Type;

        var expr = parameter;
        foreach (var prop in props)
        {
            var pi = type.GetProperty(prop);
            expr = Expression.Property(expr, pi);
            type = pi.PropertyType;
        }

        return expr;
    }

Implementation:

var method = typeof (string).GetMethod("Contains", new Type[] {typeof (string)}, null);
var lambdaParameter = Expression.Parameter(typeof(TEntity), "te");
var filterExpression = Expression.Lambda<Func<TEntity, bool>> (
            filters.Select(filter => Expression.Call(GetDeepProperty(lambdaParameter, filter.Property),
                                                      method,
                                                      Expression.Constant(filter.Value))).
                Where(exp => exp != null).
                Cast<Expression>().
                ToList().
                Aggregate(Expression.Or), lambdaParameter);