How to dynamically add OR operator to WHERE clause in LINQ

Question

You can use the PredicateBuilder class:

var searchPredicate = PredicateBuilder.False<Songs>();

foreach(string str in strArray)
{
   var closureVariable = str; // See the link below for the reason
   searchPredicate = 
     searchPredicate.Or(SongsVar => SongsVar.Tags.Contains(closureVariable));
}

var allSongMatches = db.Songs.Where(searchPredicate);

LinqToSql strange behaviour

I recently created an extension method for creating string searches that also allows for OR searches. Blogged about here

I also created it as a nuget package that you can install:

http://www.nuget.org/packages/NinjaNye.SearchExtensions/

Once installed you will be able to do the following

var result = db.Songs.Search(s => s.Tags, strArray);

If you want to create your own version to allow the above, you will need to do the following:

public static class QueryableExtensions  
{  
    public static IQueryable<T> Search<T>(this IQueryable<T> source, Expression<Func<T, string>> stringProperty, params string[] searchTerms)  
    {  
        if (!searchTerms.Any())  
        {  
            return source;  
        }  

        Expression orExpression = null;  
        foreach (var searchTerm in searchTerms)  
        {  
            //Create expression to represent x.[property].Contains(searchTerm)  
            var searchTermExpression = Expression.Constant(searchTerm);  
            var containsExpression = BuildContainsExpression(stringProperty, searchTermExpression);  

            orExpression = BuildOrExpression(orExpression, containsExpression);  
        }  

        var completeExpression = Expression.Lambda<Func<T, bool>>(orExpression, stringProperty.Parameters);  
        return source.Where(completeExpression);  
    }  

    private static Expression BuildOrExpression(Expression existingExpression, Expression expressionToAdd)  
    {  
        if (existingExpression == null)  
        {  
            return expressionToAdd;  
        }  

        //Build 'OR' expression for each property  
        return Expression.OrElse(existingExpression, expressionToAdd);  
    }  
}

Alternatively, take a look at the github project for NinjaNye.SearchExtensions as this has other options and has been refactored somewhat to allow other combinations

There is another, somewhat easier method that will accomplish this. ScottGu's blog details a dynamic linq library that I've found very helpful in the past. Essentially, it generates the query from a string you pass in. Here's a sample of the code you'd write:

Dim Northwind As New NorthwindDataContext

Dim query = Northwind.Products _
                     .Where("CategoryID=2 AND UnitPrice>3") _
                     .OrderBy("SupplierId")

Gridview1.DataSource = query
Gridview1.DataBind()

More info can be found at scottgu's blog here.