Like Operator in Entity Framework?

.net sql-server entity-framework linq-to-entities
brien picture brien · Jun 23, 2009 · Viewed 119.8k times · Source

We're trying to implement the "LIKE" operator in Entity Framework for our entities with string fields, but it doesn't appear to be supported. Has anyone else tried to do something like this?

This blog post summarizes the issue we're having. We could use contains, but that only matches the most trivial case for LIKE. Combining contains, startswith, endswith, and indexof gets us there, but requires a translation between standard wildcards and Linq to Entities code.

Answer

Jon Skeet picture Jon Skeet · Jun 23, 2009

I don't know anything about EF really, but in LINQ to SQL you usually express a LIKE clause using String.Contains:

where entity.Name.Contains("xyz")

translates to

WHERE Name LIKE '%xyz%'

(Use StartsWith and EndsWith for other behaviour.)

I'm not entirely sure whether that's helpful, because I don't understand what you mean when you say you're trying to implement LIKE. If I've misunderstood completely, let me know and I'll delete this answer :)

Related questions

ADO.NET Entity Framework and identity columns

Is the Entity Framework aware of identity columns? I am using SQL Server 2005 Express Edition and have several tables where the primary key is an identity column. when I use these tables to create an entity model and use the …

Read More
The DELETE statement conflicted with the SAME TABLE REFERENCE constraint with Entity Framework

I have a table with a self reference where the ParentId is an FK to the ID (PK). Using EF (code-first), I've set up my relationship as follows: this.HasOptional(t => t.ParentValue) .WithMany(t => t.ChildValues) .HasForeignKey(…

Read More
The number of primary key values passed must match number of primary key values defined on the entity

I've created a view in SQL Server that contains the most important columns from different tables. Printing the content of the table to the ASP.NET MVC view works fine, but when I want to get the details of a …

Read More