C# Version Of SQL LIKE

Question

Is there any way to search patterns in strings in C#?

Something like Sql LIKE would be very useful.

Answer 1

This is my implementation - it passes the tests and does the trick - you may want to change the replacement token if you're using three tildes in your statements:

private Regex LikeExpressionToRegexPattern(String likePattern)
{
    var replacementToken = "~~~";

    String result = likePattern.Replace("_", replacementToken)
        .Replace("%", ".*");

    result = Regex.Replace(result, @"\[.*" + replacementToken + @".*\]", "_");

    result = result.Replace(replacementToken, ".");

    return new Regex("^" + result + "$", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
}

Example:

// Define a test string.
string text = "Hello stackoverflow world";

string like = "%flow%";

// Define a regular expression and Find matches.
MatchCollection matches = LikeExpressionToRegexPattern(like).Matches(text);

//Result.
if (matches.Count > 0) {
    //Yes
} else {
    //No
}