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sql-serverlinqfull-text-search
Edwin Jarvis
Edwin Jarvis

Reputation: 6140

Is it possible to use Full Text Search (FTS) with LINQ?

I wonder if is possible to use FTS with LINQ using .NET Framework 3.5. I'm searching around the documentation that I didn't find anything useful yet.

Does anyone have any experience on this?

Upvotes: 78

Views: 24255

Answers (6)

John
John

Reputation: 30586

Yes. However you have to create SQL server function first and call that as by default LINQ will use a like.

This blog post which will explain the detail but this is the extract:

To get it working you need to create a table valued function that does nothing more than a CONTAINSTABLE query based on the keywords you pass in,

create function udf_sessionSearch
      (@keywords nvarchar(4000))
returns table
as
  return (select [SessionId],[rank]
            from containstable(Session,(description,title),@keywords))

You then add this function to your LINQ 2 SQL model and he presto you can now write queries like.

    var sessList = from s   in DB.Sessions
                   join fts in DB.udf_sessionSearch(SearchText) 
                   on s.sessionId equals fts.SessionId
                 select s;

Upvotes: 79

AqD
AqD

Reputation: 79

I made a working prototype, for SQL Server's CONTAINS only and no wildcard columns. What it achieves is for you to use CONTAINS like ordinary LINQ functions:

var query = context.CreateObjectSet<MyFile>()
    .Where(file => file.FileName.Contains("pdf")
        && FullTextFunctions.ContainsBinary(file.FileTable_Ref.file_stream, "Hello"));

You will need:

1.Function definitions in code and EDMX to support the CONTAINS keyword.

2.Rewrite EF SQL by EFProviderWrapperToolkit/EFTracingProvider, because CONTAINS is not a function and by default the generated SQL treats its result as bit.

BUT:

1.Contains is not really a function and you cannot select boolean results from it. It can only be used in conditions.

2.The SQL rewriting code below is likely to break if queries contain non-parameterized strings with special characters.

Source of my prototype

Function Definitions: (EDMX)

Under edmx:StorageModels/Schema

<Function Name="conTAINs" BuiltIn="true" IsComposable="true" ParameterTypeSemantics="AllowImplicitConversion" ReturnType="bit" Schema="dbo">
    <Parameter Name="dataColumn" Type="varbinary" Mode="In" />
    <Parameter Name="keywords" Type="nvarchar" Mode="In" />
</Function>
<Function Name="conTAInS" BuiltIn="true" IsComposable="true" ParameterTypeSemantics="AllowImplicitConversion" ReturnType="bit" Schema="dbo">
    <Parameter Name="textColumn" Type="nvarchar" Mode="In" />
    <Parameter Name="keywords" Type="nvarchar" Mode="In" />
</Function>

PS: the weird cases of chars are used to enable the same function with different parameter types (varbinary and nvarchar)

Function Definitions: (code)

using System.Data.Objects.DataClasses;

public static class FullTextFunctions
{
    [EdmFunction("MyModel.Store", "conTAINs")]
    public static bool ContainsBinary(byte[] dataColumn, string keywords)
    {
        throw new System.NotSupportedException("Direct calls are not supported.");
    }

    [EdmFunction("MyModel.Store", "conTAInS")]
    public static bool ContainsString(string textColumn, string keywords)
    {
        throw new System.NotSupportedException("Direct calls are not supported.");
    }
}

PS: "MyModel.Store" is as same as the value in edmx:StorageModels/Schema/@Namespace

Rewrite EF SQL: (by EFProviderWrapperToolkit)

using EFProviderWrapperToolkit;
using EFTracingProvider;

public class TracedMyDataContext : MyDataContext
{
    public TracedMyDataContext()
        : base(EntityConnectionWrapperUtils.CreateEntityConnectionWithWrappers(
            "name=MyDataContext", "EFTracingProvider"))
    {
        var tracingConnection = (EFTracingConnection) ((EntityConnection) Connection).StoreConnection;
        tracingConnection.CommandExecuting += TracedMyDataContext_CommandExecuting;
    }

    protected static void TracedMyDataContext_CommandExecuting(object sender, CommandExecutionEventArgs e)
    {
        e.Command.CommandText = FixFullTextContainsBinary(e.Command.CommandText);
        e.Command.CommandText = FixFullTextContainsString(e.Command.CommandText);
    }


    private static string FixFullTextContainsBinary(string commandText, int startIndex = 0)
    {
        var patternBeg = "(conTAINs(";
        var patternEnd = ")) = 1";
        var exprBeg = commandText.IndexOf(patternBeg, startIndex, StringComparison.Ordinal);
        if (exprBeg == -1)
            return commandText;
        var exprEnd = FindEnd(commandText, exprBeg + patternBeg.Length, ')');
        if (commandText.Substring(exprEnd).StartsWith(patternEnd))
        {
            var newCommandText = commandText.Substring(0, exprEnd + 2) + commandText.Substring(exprEnd + patternEnd.Length);
            return FixFullTextContainsBinary(newCommandText, exprEnd + 2);
        }
        return commandText;
    }

    private static string FixFullTextContainsString(string commandText, int startIndex = 0)
    {
        var patternBeg = "(conTAInS(";
        var patternEnd = ")) = 1";
        var exprBeg = commandText.IndexOf(patternBeg, startIndex, StringComparison.Ordinal);
        if (exprBeg == -1)
            return commandText;
        var exprEnd = FindEnd(commandText, exprBeg + patternBeg.Length, ')');
        if (exprEnd != -1 && commandText.Substring(exprEnd).StartsWith(patternEnd))
        {
            var newCommandText = commandText.Substring(0, exprEnd + 2) + commandText.Substring(exprEnd + patternEnd.Length);
            return FixFullTextContainsString(newCommandText, exprEnd + 2);
        }
        return commandText;
    }

    private static int FindEnd(string commandText, int startIndex, char endChar)
    {
        // TODO: handle escape chars between parens/squares/quotes
        var lvlParan = 0;
        var lvlSquare = 0;
        var lvlQuoteS = 0;
        var lvlQuoteD = 0;
        for (var i = startIndex; i < commandText.Length; i++)
        {
            var c = commandText[i];
            if (c == endChar && lvlParan == 0 && lvlSquare == 0
                && (lvlQuoteS % 2) == 0 && (lvlQuoteD % 2) == 0)
                return i;
            switch (c)
            {
                case '(':
                    ++lvlParan;
                    break;
                case ')':
                    --lvlParan;
                    break;
                case '[':
                    ++lvlSquare;
                    break;
                case ']':
                    --lvlSquare;
                    break;
                case '\'':
                    ++lvlQuoteS;
                    break;
                case '"':
                    ++lvlQuoteD;
                    break;
            }
        }
        return -1;
    }
}

Enable EFProviderWrapperToolkit:

If you get it by nuget, it should add these lines into your app.config or web.config:

<system.data>
    <DbProviderFactories>
        <add name="EFTracingProvider" invariant="EFTracingProvider" description="Tracing Provider Wrapper" type="EFTracingProvider.EFTracingProviderFactory, EFTracingProvider, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=def642f226e0e59b" />
        <add name="EFProviderWrapper" invariant="EFProviderWrapper" description="Generic Provider Wrapper" type="EFProviderWrapperToolkit.EFProviderWrapperFactory, EFProviderWrapperToolkit, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=def642f226e0e59b" />
    </DbProviderFactories>
</system.data>

Upvotes: 0

Gabriel Isenberg
Gabriel Isenberg

Reputation: 26341

No. Full text search is not supported by LINQ To SQL.

That said, you can use a stored procedure that utilizes FTS and have the LINQ To SQL query pull data from that.

Upvotes: 12

Victor Gelmutdinov
Victor Gelmutdinov

Reputation: 589

if you do not want to create joins and want to simplify your C# code, you can create SQL function and use it in "from" clause:

CREATE FUNCTION ad_Search
(
      @keyword nvarchar(4000)
)
RETURNS TABLE
AS
RETURN
(
      select * from Ad where 
      (CONTAINS(Description, @keyword) OR CONTAINS(Title, @keyword))
)

After updating your DBML, use it in linq:

string searchKeyword = "word and subword";
var result = from ad in context.ad_Search(searchKeyword)
                 select ad;

This will produce simple SQL like this:

SELECT [t0].ID, [t0].Title, [t0].Description
FROM [dbo].[ad_Search](@p0) AS [t0]

This is works in search by several columns as you can see from the ad_Search function implementation.

Upvotes: 10

Will
Will

Reputation:

No, full text searching is something very specific to sql server (in which text is indexed by words, and queries hit this index versus traversing a character array). Linq does not support this, any .Contains() calls will hit the un-managed string functions but will not benefit from indexing.

Upvotes: 5

Glenn Slaven
Glenn Slaven

Reputation: 34223

I don't believe so. You can use 'contains' on a field, but it only generates a LIKE query. If you want to use full text I would recommend using a stored proc to do the query then pass it back to LINQ

Upvotes: 9

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