How to use SQL wildcards in LINQ to Entity Framework

Question

I have a query that looks like this:

IQueryable profiles = from p in connection.Profiles
    where profile.Email.Contains(txtSearch)
    selec         


        

Answer 1

I'm not sure that this is possible directly with linq because you can call only basic string functions like Contains, StartsWith or EndsWith. It is possible with Entity SQL so you can combine these approaches.

var query = new ObjectQuery(
    @"SELECT VALUE p
      FROM CsdlContainerName.Profiles AS p
      WHERE p.Email LIKE '" + wildcardSearch + "'",
    context);

var result = query.AsQueryable().OrderByDescending(p => p.Name).ToList();

ESQL injection strikes back :)

Second version without injection vulnerability (I didn't try it but it should work):

var commandText =
    @"SELECT VALUE p
      FROM CsdlContainerName.Profiles AS p
      WHERE p.Email LIKE @search";

var query = new ObjectQuery(commandText, context);
query.Parameters.Add(new ObjectParameter("search", wildcardSearch));

var result = query.AsQueryable().OrderByDescending(p => p.Name).ToList();