LINQ for LIKE queries of array elements

Question

Let\'s say I have an array, and I want to do a LINQ query against a varchar that returns any records that have an element of the array anywhere in the varchar.

Somet

Answer 1

Unfortunately, LIKE is not supported in LINQ to SQL as per here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb882677.aspx

To get around this, you will have to write a stored procedure which will accept the parameters you want to use in the like statement(s) and then call that from LINQ to SQL.

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It should be noted that a few of the answers suggest using Contains. This won't work because it looks to see that the entire string matches the array element. What is being looked for is for the array element to be contained in the field itself, something like:

industry LIKE '%%'

As Clark has mentioned in a comment, you could use a call to IndexOf on each element (which should translate to a SQL call):

string[] industries = { "airline", "railroad" }

var query = 
    from c in contacts 
    where
        c.industry.IndexOf(industries[0]) != -1 ||
        c.industry.IndexOf(industries[1]) != -1

If you know the length of the array and the number of elements, then you could hard-code this. If you don't, then you will have to create the Expression instance based on the array and the field you are looking at.