Is it possible to call named method within a call to Where?

Question

I am trying to understand some performance implication of Linq from this free ebook by RedGate ftp://support.red-gate.com/ebooks/under-the-hood-of-net-memory-management-part1.pdf

On page 157-158 in this book, they created following example.

Order[] pastDueAccounts = null;  
DateTimedueDate = DateTime.Today.AddDays(-7);  
using(varcontext = new Context())    
{  
    pastDueAccounts = context.Accounts.Where(account => account.DueDate < dueDate).ToArray();  
} 

They then re-factored part of lamda expression into following function.

public bool PastDueAccount(Account account)  
{  
    return account.DueDate < DateTime.Today.AddDays(-7);  
} 

Finally they used this function as follows.

Order[] pastDueAccounts = null;  
using(varcontext = new Context())  
{  
    pastDueAccounts = context.Accounts.Where(account => PastDueAccount(account)).ToArray();  
} 

Based on what I researched so far, its not possible to run this linq query as LINQ will not be able recognize the method and cannot be translate into a store expression. I wonder if this example is wrong and simply not possible to run or if I am just having hard time getting my heard around on how to simulate this problem?

Answer 1

You are correct, this would not be able to be called by LINQ-to-Entities the way it's displayed.

The only way it could be used in LINQ-to-Entities is to:

• Create the equivalent of the function on the server side.
• Map the function in the model appropriately so that it translates the call correctly.