c# - How to do a subquery in LINQ?

Question

Here's an example of the query I'm trying to convert to LINQ:

SELECT *
FROM Users
WHERE Users.lastname LIKE '%fra%'
    AND Users.Id IN (
         SELECT UserId 
         FROM CompanyRolesToUsers 
         WHERE CompanyRoleId in (2,3,4) )

There is a FK relationship between CompanyRolesToUsers and Users, but it's a many to many relationship and CompanyRolesToUsers is the junction table.

We already have most of our site built, and we already have most of the filtering working by building Expressions using a PredicateExtensions class.

The code for the straightforward filters looks something like this:

 if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(TextBoxLastName.Text))
 {
     predicateAnd = predicateAnd.And(c => c.LastName.Contains(
                                     TextBoxLastName.Text.Trim()));
 }

e.Result = context.Users.Where(predicateAnd);

I'm trying to add a predicate for a subselect in another table. (CompanyRolesToUsers)

What I'd like to be able to add is something that does this:

int[] selectedRoles = GetSelectedRoles();
if( selectedRoles.Length > 0 )
{
    //somehow only select the userid from here ???:
    var subquery = from u in CompanyRolesToUsers
                   where u.RoleID in selectedRoles
                   select u.UserId;

    //somehow transform this into an Expression ???:
    var subExpression = Expression.Invoke(subquery);

    //and add it on to the existing expressions ???:
    predicateAnd = predicateAnd.And(subExpression);
}

Is there any way to do this? It's frustrating because I can write the stored procedure easily, but I'm new to this LINQ thing and I have a deadline. I haven't been able to find an example that matches up, but I'm sure it's there somewhere.

Answer 1

Here's a subquery for you!

List<int> IdsToFind = new List<int>() {2, 3, 4};

db.Users
.Where(u => SqlMethods.Like(u.LastName, "%fra%"))
.Where(u =>
    db.CompanyRolesToUsers
    .Where(crtu => IdsToFind.Contains(crtu.CompanyRoleId))
    .Select(crtu =>  crtu.UserId)
    .Contains(u.Id)
)

---

Regarding this portion of the question:

predicateAnd = predicateAnd.And(c => c.LastName.Contains(
                                TextBoxLastName.Text.Trim()));

I strongly recommend extracting the string from the textbox before authoring the query.

string searchString = TextBoxLastName.Text.Trim();
predicateAnd = predicateAnd.And(c => c.LastName.Contains( searchString));

You want to maintain good control over what gets sent to the database. In the original code, one possible reading is that an untrimmed string gets sent into the database for trimming - which is not good work for the database to be doing.