Question

I’m working on an extension method to provide filtering capabilities for several entities. The entities involved are of different types but have common fields that can be searched on.

The below is working at the moment, however I was wondering if this could be “genericized” so that the casting from generic to explicit type doesn’t need to occur?

public static IQueryable<T> PriceLow<T>(this IQueryable<T> query, decimal? priceLow)
{
    if (typeof(T) == typeof(Entity1))
    {
        var innerQuery = (IQueryable<Entity1>) query;
        var results = priceLow.HasValue ? innerQuery.Where(o => (o.ListPrice > priceLow.Value)) : innerQuery;
        return (IQueryable<T>) results;
    }

    if (typeof(T) == typeof(Entity2))
    {
        var innerQuery = (IQueryable<Entity2>)query;
        var results = priceLow.HasValue ? innerQuery.Where(o => (o.ListPrice > priceLow.Value)) : innerQuery;
        return (IQueryable<T>)results;
    }

    return null;
}

Example usage:

    var foo = _repository.GetAllEntity1().PriceLow(_searchCritera.PriceLow);

Answer 1

If you can change the two entity types to implement a common interface which has the shared properties/methods, then you can use a generic type constraint. This would also work with a shared base class.

Do that, and then your signature looks like this (cluttering details omitted):

public static IQueryable<T> PriceLow<T>(...)
  where T : ICommonInterface