CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#linqwildcard
Just A Name
Just A Name

Reputation: 19

C# LINQ: how to handle wildcard search?

I need a search function like this: The function accepts all strings with many types of wildcards:

* or % >>> can replace one or more characters
# >>> used to replace a number
@ >>> used to replace an alphabet
? >>> used to replace a character (can be both number and alphabet)

As I know, in LINQ there are 3 functions for searching strings: StartsWith, EndsWith and Contains. In SQL query, there are 2 types of LIKE: % for one or more characters and _ for only one character. So, how can I solve this problem?

Thank you very much

Upvotes: 1

Views: 5978

Answers (1)

Ryan T. Grimm
Ryan T. Grimm

Reputation: 1325

You could use regex and replace the wild cards with regex expressions. Here is an example.

    IEnumerable<string> Search(IEnumerable<string> data, string q)
    {
        string regexSearch = q
            .Replace("*", ".+")
            .Replace("%", ".+")
            .Replace("#", "\\d")
            .Replace("@", "[a-zA-Z]")
            .Replace("?", "\\w");

        Regex regex = new Regex(regexSearch);

        return data
            .Where(s => regex.IsMatch(s));
    }

Upvotes: 6

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