Sql Like functionality in LINQ?

In this code snippet we will create an extension method which will add functionality similar to functionality of SQL ‘Like’

‘Can we use a ‘Like’ functionality in LINQ, which contains same functioning as ‘Like’ in SQL’?

Are you going to say ‘No’, wait just read this snippet and you will say ‘Yes’ Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

First, lets take a look how we can achieve the same with ‘Contains’ apply in LINQ for collections:

var authors = new List<string> { "Gaurav Kumar Arora", 
"Mahesh Chand", "Shivprasad Koirala", 
"Sumit Jolly", "Sukesh Marla", "Rj Nitin" };

From above author list, we need to find author ‘Mahesh Chand’:

//This will return 'Mahesh Chand'  
var author = authors.Where(a => a.ToLower().Contains("mahesh"));  

Also, we can user ‘StartWith’ and ‘EndWith’ which are predicate, see below:

//It will works as: where a LIKE '%manish'  
var author = authors.Where(a => a.ToLower().StartsWith("manish"));  

Output of above will be: Mahesh Chand

//It will works as: where a LIKE 'manish%'  
var author = authors.Where(a => a.ToLower().EndsWith("manish"));  

Output of above will be: Mahesh Chand.

In both cases our output will be same as we did not have different data, which meets the conditions.

You are lucky if you are using LINQ-to-Sql or Entity Framework by adding following namespace you can do the everything:

[csharpusing System.Data.Linq.SqlClient;[/csharp]

and now, it is solved.

var author = from a in authors  
                   where SqlMethods.Like(a, "%/Mahesh/%")  
                   select a;

or using Lambda expression:

 
var author = authors.Where(a => SqlMethods.Like(a, "%/Mahesh/%"));

Think about those conditions where you are going to use complex scenarios and you are not using above namespace.

ah! unfortunately, here LINQ cant help you.

To solve this problem we can create an Extension Method like follow:

public static class SqlExtensionMethod  
    {  
        public static bool SqlLike(this string value, string likeTerm)  
        {  
            var regex = new Regex(string.Format("^{0}$", likeTerm.Replace("*", ".")), RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);  
            return regex.IsMatch(value ?? string.Empty);  
        }  
    }

I called above as a magic method, now we can use the LIKE functionality as:

var author = from a in authors  
                        where a.SqlLike("*mah*chand*")   
                        select a;

and using Lambda Expression:

var author = authors.Where(a => a.SqlLike("*mah*chand*"));

Adding one more tweak to this:

public static IEnumerable<string> SqlLike(this IEnumerable<string> source, string expression)  
        {  
            return from s in source   
                   where s.SqlLike(expression)   
                   select s;  
        }  

Now, we can do this:

var author = authors.SqlLike("*mah*chand*");

Here is complete extension class:

public static class SqlExtensionMethod  
    {  
        public static bool SqlLike(this string value, string likeTerm)  
        {  
            var regex = new Regex(string.Format("^{0}$", likeTerm.Replace("*", ".")), RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);  
            return regex.IsMatch(value ?? string.Empty);  
        }  
  
        public static IEnumerable<string> SqlLike(this IEnumerable<string> enumerable, string expression)  
        {  
           return enumerable.Where(s => s.SqlLike(expression));  
        }  
  
        public static IEnumerable<string> SqlLike_Old(this IEnumerable<string> enumerable, string expression)  
        {  
            return from s in enumerable  
                   where s.SqlLike(expression)  
                   select s;  
        }  
    }

Its all done!

Now, our Linq queries are having functionality equivalent to sql LIKE.

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