Question

UPDATED FOR CLARIFICATION

I posted a similar question a while back found here which used Matlab (and Matlab GUI).

However, now I am trying to do the same thing, but implemented through a Windows Form, C#, and a local, static database file which has been populated with data already.

The data in the database is as follows:

Compound_ID    Component1    Component2    Component3    Value
int            string        string        string        int

with ~24,000 rows of data.

The first column “Compound_ID” is the primary key. The next three columns, “Component1”, “Component2”, and “Component3”, contain one component each from a set of ~100 possible components. Each compound is made up of 3 different components from the set of 100. Order of components doesn’t matter, so the Compounds are combinations (as distinct from permutations) of 3 components. Example:

Compound_ID    Component1    Component2    Component3    Value
1456           a            b              c             10
1457           a            b              m             50
1458           a            c              g             25

etc. From this example, we know that there will never be another compound in the DB that is “a g c” or any other permutation thereof, since order doesn’t matter (A list of 100 values will generate ~161,000 combinations of 3, but almost 1,000,000 permutations of 3).

The user will select some number of components (with a list of checkboxes or a spreadsheet) on the Windows Form. They will press a button on the form. The button will call a method to find all of the Compounds listed in the database which can be made from the list of components the user has selected. This data will be displayed in a dataGridView on the same form.

One way it might be done (similar to the Matlab solution described by another user in my previous post): Generate 3 logical arrays, one for each column, where “1” represents the rows containing one of the 15 components. Add the columns together, and only those rows which have a value of “3” are the rows I am looking for. Then build a new table containing those rows, and display in datagridview. Any tips on how this code might look would be helpful.

I am going to give some of the solutions already provided a try. This would involve figuring out a way to call an SQL Query from C#, which I am told I can look up, and an example has already been provided.

Thanks to everyone for your help. This is a solely independent project born of curiosity, so it is not serious business, I am just trying to figure it out. I am relatively new to C# (and definitely SQL Queries), so please excuse my ignorance. Point me to sources with a little explanation if that would be a better use of everyone’s time.

Answer 1

I think this is it:

UPDATE

database table values

PKID    Col1        Col2        Col3        Cost 
1   Helium      Oxygen      Nitrogen    10
2   Hydrogen    Chlorine    Sodium      10 
3   Chlorine    Sodium      Gold        10
4   Hydrogen    Carbon      Potassium   10 
5   Carbon      Silicon     Boron       10
6   Uranium     Cesium      Plutonium   10 
7   Titanium    Iodine      Fluorine    10
8   Helium      Neon        Argon       10 
9   Krypton     Xenon       Radon       10
10  Barium      Chromium    Calcium     10 
11  Helium      Lithium     Sodium      10

So if you choose Helium, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Barium, Chromium, Calcium and Uranium, you should get rows with PKIDs 1 and 10, and that’s it. Right?

public partial class Form1 : Form
{
    public Form1()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
    }

    private void btnFind_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {            
        List<Component> results = new List<Component>();

        foreach (object itemChecked in checkedListBox1.CheckedItems)
        {
            var cn = new OdbcConnection(@"Driver={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)};Dbq=C:\elements.mdb;Uid=Admin;Pwd=;");
            StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
            sb.Append("SELECT [PKID], [Col1], [Col2], [Col3], [Cost] ");
            sb.Append("FROM components ");
            sb.Append("WHERE ? IN (Col1, Col2, Col3) ");
            var cm = new OdbcCommand(sb.ToString(), cn);
            try
            {
                cn.Open();
                cm.CommandType = System.Data.CommandType.Text;
                cm.Parameters.AddWithValue("?", itemChecked.ToString());
                OdbcDataReader dr = cm.ExecuteReader();
                if (dr.HasRows)
                {
                    while (dr.Read())
                    {
                        var comp = new Component(Convert.ToInt32(dr[0].ToString()),
                            dr[1].ToString(), dr[2].ToString(), dr[3].ToString(), Convert.ToInt32(dr[4].ToString()));

                        Component r = results.Find(
                            delegate(Component c)
                            {
                                return c.CompoundID == Convert.ToInt32(dr[0].ToString());
                            }
                            );
                        if (r != null)
                        {
                            //update the frequency
                            var obj = results.FirstOrDefault(x => x.CompoundID == comp.CompoundID);
                            if (obj != null) obj.Frequency++;
                        }
                        else { results.Add(comp); }
                    }
                }
                dr.Close();
            }
            catch (Exception ex) { Console.WriteLine(ex.Message); }
            finally { cn.Close(); }
        }

        //process/present results at this point
        //for each result in list with freq >= 3, output to grid
        IEnumerable<Component> rowsWithThreeHits = results.Where(cFreq => int.Equals(cFreq.Frequency, 3))
            .Select(x => new Component { CompoundID = x.CompoundID, Component1 = x.Component1, 
                Component2 = x.Component2, Component3 = x.Component3, CompoundValue = x.CompoundValue });
        List<Component> final = new List<Component>(rowsWithThreeHits);
        dataGridView1.DataSource = final;
    }        
}

public class Component
{
    public int CompoundID { get; set; }
    public string Component1 { get; set; }
    public string Component2 { get; set; }
    public string Component3 { get; set; }
    public int CompoundValue { get; set; }
    public int Frequency { get; set; }

    public Component() {}

    public Component(int compoundID, string component1, string component2, string component3, int compoundValue)
    {
        CompoundID = compoundID; 
        Component1 = component1;
        Component2 = component2;
        Component3 = component3;
        CompoundValue = compoundValue;
        Frequency = 1;
    }
}

I used Access because we don’t use SQL Server here, but you can swap out the ODBC object for SQL objects and it works.