Currying Expressions in C#

Question

I am trying to build up an expression tree that I can feed into Linq2SQL so that it will generate a nice clean query. My purpose is to build a filter that takes an arbitrary

Answer 1

I like using linq to build epression trees, it makes me feel uber-powerfull, so I've added this, not as a complete answer to your question, but more a an elegant way to build up expression trees...

var query = ...;
var search = "asdfasdf";
var fields = new Expression>[]{ 
    x => x.Prop1, 
    x => x.Prop2, 
    x => x.Prop3 
};
var notFields = new Expression>[]{ 
    x => x.Prop4, 
    x => x.Prop5 };

//----- 
var paramx = Expression.Parameter(query.ElementType);

//get fields to search for true
var whereColumnEqualsx = fields
    .Select(x => Expression.Invoke(x,paramx))
    .Select(x => Expression.Equal(x,Expression.Constant(search)))
    //you could change the above to use .Contains(...) || .StartsWith(...) etc.
    //you could also make it not case sensitive by 
    //wraping 'x' with a .ToLower() expression call, 
    //and setting the search constant to 'search.ToLower()'
    .Aggregate((x,y) => Expression.And(x,y));

//get fields to search for false
var whereColumnNotEqualsx = notFields
    .Select(x => Expression.Invoke(x,paramx))
    .Select(x => Expression.NotEqual(x, Expression.Constant(search)))
    //see above for the different ways to build your 'not' expression,
    //however if you use a .Contains() you need to wrap it in an Expression.Negate(...)
    .Aggregate((x,y) => Expression.Or(x,y));
    //you can change Aggregate to use Expression.And(...) 
    //if you want the query to exclude results only if the 
    //search string is in ALL of the negated fields.

var lambdax = Expression.Lambda(
    Expression.And(whereColumnEqualsx, whereColumnNotEqualsx), paramx);

var wherex = Expression.Call(typeof(Queryable)
    .GetMethods()
    .Where(x => x.Name == "Where")
    .First()
    .MakeGenericMethod(query.ElementType),
    query.Expression,lambdax);

//create query
var query2 = query.Provider.CreateQuery(wherex).OfType();