Expression tree and AND condition

Question

i'm trying to build a filter expression to filter data from the database.

I've wrote the following extension to build expression dynamically depending on the selected filter parameters:

public static Expression<Func<T, bool>> And<T>(
        this Expression<Func<T, bool>> leftExpression, 
        Expression<Func<T, bool>> rightExpression)
{
    var invocationExpression = Expression.Invoke(rightExpression, leftExpression.Parameters.Cast<Expression>());
    var andExpression = Expression.Lambda<Func<T, bool>>(
        Expression.AndAlso(leftExpression.Body, invocationExpression), 
        leftExpression.Parameters);

    return andExpression;
}

I'm using it in such way:

Expression<Func<MyObject, bool>> expression = x => true;

if(MyFilter.SomeParam) {
    expression = expression.And(x=>x.MyProperty == MyFilter.SomeParam);
}

It works great with NHibernate, but when i'm using this code with Entity Framework 5 it fails with the following exception message:

The LINQ expression node type 'Invoke' is not supported in LINQ to Entities.

There is one workaround that fetches the whole collection from the database and then applies filter conditions through the IEnumerable.Where(Func<T1, T2> filterClause), but it dont need all data just to get one record while Expression<Func<T1, T2>> expressions are translated directly into SQL statement.

Is there any simple way to make this code work with Entity Framework?

Answer 1

Try this implementation from Domain Oriented N-Layered .NET 4.0 Sample App (there is also implementation of specification pattern):

public static class ExpressionBuilder
{
    public static Expression<T> Compose<T>(this Expression<T> first, Expression<T> second, Func<Expression, Expression, Expression> merge)
    {
        var map = first.Parameters.Select((f, i) => new { f, s = second.Parameters[i] }).ToDictionary(p => p.s, p => p.f);
        var secondBody = ParameterRebinder.ReplaceParameters(map, second.Body);
        return Expression.Lambda<T>(merge(first.Body, secondBody), first.Parameters);
    }

    public static Expression<Func<T, bool>> And<T>(this Expression<Func<T, bool>> first, Expression<Func<T, bool>> second)
    {
        return first.Compose(second, Expression.And);
    }

    public static Expression<Func<T, bool>> Or<T>(this Expression<Func<T, bool>> first, Expression<Func<T, bool>> second)
    {
        return first.Compose(second, Expression.Or);
    }

}

public class ParameterRebinder : ExpressionVisitor
{
    private readonly Dictionary<ParameterExpression, ParameterExpression> map;

    public ParameterRebinder(Dictionary<ParameterExpression, ParameterExpression> map)
    {
        this.map = map ?? new Dictionary<ParameterExpression, ParameterExpression>();
    }

    public static Expression ReplaceParameters(Dictionary<ParameterExpression, ParameterExpression> map, Expression exp)
    {
        return new ParameterRebinder(map).Visit(exp);
    }

    protected override Expression VisitParameter(ParameterExpression p)
    {
        ParameterExpression replacement;
        if (map.TryGetValue(p, out replacement))
        {
            p = replacement;
        }

        return base.VisitParameter(p);
    }

}

Answer 2

Please find the solution in the blog post below:

A universal PredicateBuilder

The author of this blog post provide another to implementation of "Add" method to combine 2 expression.

/// <summary>
/// Enables the efficient, dynamic composition of query predicates.
/// </summary>
public static class PredicateBuilder
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Creates a predicate that evaluates to true.
    /// </summary>
    public static Expression<Func<T, bool>> True<T>() { return param => true; }

    /// <summary>
    /// Creates a predicate that evaluates to false.
    /// </summary>
    public static Expression<Func<T, bool>> False<T>() { return param => false; }

    /// <summary>
    /// Creates a predicate expression from the specified lambda expression.
    /// </summary>
    public static Expression<Func<T, bool>> Create<T>(Expression<Func<T, bool>> predicate) { return predicate; }

    /// <summary>
    /// Combines the first predicate with the second using the logical "and".
    /// </summary>
    public static Expression<Func<T, bool>> And<T>(this Expression<Func<T, bool>> first, Expression<Func<T, bool>> second)
    {
        return first.Compose(second, Expression.AndAlso);
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Combines the first predicate with the second using the logical "or".
    /// </summary>
    public static Expression<Func<T, bool>> Or<T>(this Expression<Func<T, bool>> first, Expression<Func<T, bool>> second)
    {
        return first.Compose(second, Expression.OrElse);
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Negates the predicate.
    /// </summary>
    public static Expression<Func<T, bool>> Not<T>(this Expression<Func<T, bool>> expression)
    {
        var negated = Expression.Not(expression.Body);
        return Expression.Lambda<Func<T, bool>>(negated, expression.Parameters);
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Combines the first expression with the second using the specified merge function.
    /// </summary>
    static Expression<T> Compose<T>(this Expression<T> first, Expression<T> second, Func<Expression, Expression, Expression> merge)
    {
        // zip parameters (map from parameters of second to parameters of first)
        var map = first.Parameters
            .Select((f, i) => new { f, s = second.Parameters[i] })
            .ToDictionary(p => p.s, p => p.f);

        // replace parameters in the second lambda expression with the parameters in the first
        var secondBody = ParameterRebinder.ReplaceParameters(map, second.Body);

        // create a merged lambda expression with parameters from the first expression
        return Expression.Lambda<T>(merge(first.Body, secondBody), first.Parameters);
    }

    class ParameterRebinder : ExpressionVisitor
    {
        readonly Dictionary<ParameterExpression, ParameterExpression> map;

        ParameterRebinder(Dictionary<ParameterExpression, ParameterExpression> map)
        {
            this.map = map ?? new Dictionary<ParameterExpression, ParameterExpression>();
        }

        public static Expression ReplaceParameters(Dictionary<ParameterExpression, ParameterExpression> map, Expression exp)
        {
            return new ParameterRebinder(map).Visit(exp);
        }

        protected override Expression VisitParameter(ParameterExpression p)
        {
            ParameterExpression replacement;

            if (map.TryGetValue(p, out replacement))
            {
                p = replacement;
            }

            return base.VisitParameter(p);
        }
    }
}