Creating Generic Search Method

Question

Hi There,

It is possible to create a generic search method where key is unknown; for e.g Key for the List<T> will be passed to the parameter and it performs a like search and return the filtered  List<T>.

Code should be something like:

public List<T> LikeSearch<T>(List<T> AllData,T key, string searchString)
{
            List<T> _list = new List<T>();
           //Perform the search on AllData based on searchString passed on the key given
            return _list;
}

Uses will be like:

Example 1

List<Users> _users = LikeSearch<Users>(AllUsers,'Name','sam');

Where AllUsers is the list of 100 users.

Example 2

List<Customers> _cust = LikeSearch<Customers>(AllCustomers,'City','London');

Where AllCustomers is the list of 100 Customers.

Please sugest

Answer 1

Thank you folks.

I solved my problem. Here is the same code.

public static List<T> LikeSearch<T>(this List<T> data, string key, string searchString)
        {
            var property = typeof(T).GetProperty(key);

            if (property == null)
                throw new ArgumentException("'{typeof(T).Name}' does not implement a public get property named '{key}'.");

            return data.Where(d => ((string)property.GetValue(d)).Contains(searchString)).ToList();
        }

Hope this will help you people.

Answer 2

It already exists in LINQ:

List<Users> _users = AllUsers.Where(u => u.Name.Contains('sam'));