###This project is avaliable for download as a nuget package at https://www.nuget.org/packages/NinjaNye.SearchExtensions/
SearchExtensions is a library of IQueryable and IEnumerable extension methods to perform searching. For more information on these methods, please visit my blog: http://jnye.co/posts/tagged/search
You can get in touch with me by adding a comment on my blog (http://jnye.co) or you can follow me on twitter (@ninjanye)
The latest release includes Soundex support to IEnumerable collections.
The changes made to the latest release of Search extensions are:
- Bump version to Release 1.0
- Remove the previously marked
[Obsolete]methods - Promote the fluent
Searchmethods out of the fluent namespace - Remove the specific
SearchAll()method in favour of utilising.Search() - Performance improvements
- Minor code cleanup
As of version 0.5, SearchExtensions has been upgraded to have a fluent API enabling a more control over your queries as well as making them easy to read and construct.
The IQueryable extension methods build expression trees based on your command chain and then sends this request to the data provider when required. This means that your data provider is restricting the records that are brought into memory instead of having all records brought into, and filtered, in memory.
Search methods available to IQueryable data are:
Containing- target property contains search term or termsIsEqual- target property equals search term or termsStartsWith- target property starts with search term or terms
###How to: Performing Containing searches
Search for a single search term within a single property
var result = queryableData.Search(x => x.Property1)
.Containing("searchTerm");
Search for a single search term within multiple properties
var result = queryableData.Search(x => x.Property1,
x => x.Property2,
x => x.Property3)
.Containing("searchTerm");
Search for multiple search terms within a single property
var result = queryableData.Search(x => x.Property1)
.Containing("search", "term");
Search for multiple search terms within multiple properties
var result = queryableData.Search(x => x.Property1,
x => x.Property2,
x => x.Property3)
.Containing("searchTerm1",
"searchTerm2",
"searchTerm3");
###How to: Performing Containing AND searches
Search where a single property contains a single search term
AND a another property contains a single search term
var result = queryableData.Search(x => x.Property1)
.Containing("searchTerm1")
.Search(x => x.Property1)
.Containing("searchTerm2");
Search where a single search term exists within in Property1 OR Property2
AND single search term exists within in Property3 OR Property4
var result = queryableData.Search(x => x.Property1, x => x.Property2)
.Containing("searchTerm")
.Search(x => x.Property3, x => x.Property4)
.Containing("searchTerm");
Search where a single search term exists in Property1 OR Property2
AND any of the multiple search terms exist within a single property
var result = queryableData.Search(x => x.Property1, x => x.Property2)
.Containing("searchTerm")
.Search(x => x.Property3)
.Containing("another", "term");
###How to: Performing IsEqual searches
Search where a single property equals a single search term
var result = queryableData.Search(x => x.Property1)
.IsEqual("searchTerm");
Search where any one of multiple properties is equal to a single search term
var result = queryableData.Search(x => x.Property1,
x => x.Property2,
x => x.Property3)
.IsEqual("searchTerm");
Search where a single property is equal to any one of multiple search terms
var result = queryableData.Search(x => x.Property1)
.IsEqual("search", "term");
Search where any one of multiple properties is equal to any one of multiple search terms
var result = queryableData.Search(x => x.Property1,
x => x.Property2,
x => x.Property3)
.IsEqual("searchTerm1",
"searchTerm2",
"searchTerm3");
###How to: Performing StartsWith searches
Search where a single property starts with a single search term
var result = queryableData.Search(x => x.Property1)
.StartsWith("searchTerm");
Search where any one of multiple properties starts with to a single search term
var result = queryableData.Search(x => x.Property1,
x => x.Property2,
x => x.Property3)
.StartsWith("searchTerm");
Search where a single property starts with any one of multiple search terms
var result = queryableData.Search(x => x.Property1)
.StartsWith("search", "term");
Search where any one of multiple properties starts with any one of multiple search terms
var result = queryableData.Search(x => x.Property1,
x => x.Property2,
x => x.Property3)
.StartsWith("searchTerm1",
"searchTerm2",
"searchTerm3");
###How to: Combining instructions With the latest version of SearchExtensions you can also combine search actions. For instance
Search where a single property starts with a single search term AND containing a single search term
var result = queryableData.Search(x => x.Property1)
.StartsWith("abc")
.Containing("mno");
The ability to pass multiple search terms to any of the action methods still remains:
var result = queryableData.Search(x => x.Property1, x => x.Property2)
// that starts with "abc" OR "ninja"
.StartsWith("abc", "ninja")
// and contains "xyz" OR "extensions"
.Containing("xyz", "extensions")
##IEnumerable (in memory) Searches
SearchExtensions has also been extended to support IEnumerable collections.
This means you can now perform all of the above searches on in memory collections should you need to.
Currently IEnumerable searching has more features available to it than IQueryable, namely EndsWith and 'SetCulture'
SetCulture- Sets the string comparison culture with which to perform searchesContaining- target property contains search term or termsIsEqual- target property equals search term or termsStartsWith- target property starts with search term or termsEndsWith- target property ends with search term or terms
The important thing to remember when performing an in memory search is to set the culture to the type of string comparison you wish to perform. If SetCulture is not specified, StringComparison.CurrentCulture is used.
###How to: Performing IEnumerable searches
These methods are identical to that of the IQueryable methods.
var result = enumerableData.Search(x => x.Property1)
.SetCulture(StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase) // Set culture for comparison
.StartsWith("abc")
.EndsWith("xyz")
.Containing("mno");
It is also possible to switch the StringComparison culture context multiple times
var result = enumerableData.Search(x => x.Property1)
.SetCulture(StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)
.StartsWith("abc") // Uses OrdinalIgnoreCase
.SetCulture(StringComparison.Ordinal)
.EndsWith("xyz") // Uses Ordinal
.SetCulture(StringComparison.CurrentCulture)
.Containing("mno"); //Uses CurrentCulture
Another feature of the fluent api across both IQueryable and IEnumerable collections is the ToRanked() method.
As well as returning the matched items, a Ranked Search also returns a hit count for each item in the form of an IRanked result. This enables you to order by hit count to retrieve the most relevant search results.
###IRanked<T> result
An IRanked result is simply defined as follows:
public interface IRanked<out T>
{
int Hits { get; }
T Item { get; }
}
This is returned using the ToRanked() method:
RankedSearch for a single search term within a single property
var result = queryableData.Search(x => x.Property1)
.Containing("searchTerm")
.ToRanked();
RankedSearch for a single search term within multiple properties
var result = queryableData.Search(x => x.Property1, x => x.Property2, x => x.Property3)
.Containing("searchTerm")
.ToRanked();
RankedSearch for multiple search terms within a single property
var result = queryableData.Search(x => x.Property1)
.Containing("searchTerm1", "searchTerm2", "searchTerm3")
.ToRanked();
RankedSearch for multiple search terms within multiple properties
var result = queryableData.Search(x => x.Property1, x => x.Property2)
.Containing("searchTerm1", "searchTerm2", "searchTerm3")
.ToRanked();
Using ranked search you can now easily order your search results by the most relevant. This following example assumes we have a list of User which has FirstName, LastName and MiddleName string properties. In this example we want to match on those with "John" in their name and retrieve the top 10 results.
var result = context.Users.Search(x => x.FirstName, x => x.LastName, x.MiddleName)
.Containing("John")
.ToRanked()
.OrderByDescending(r => r.Hits) // Order by Hits property of IRanked<User>
.Take(10);
We can also mix it up with the other fluent API methods
var result = context.Users.Search(x => x.FirstName, x => x.LastName, x => x.MiddleName)
.StartsWith("john")
.Containing("nye")
.ToRanked()
.OrderByDescending(r => r.Hits) // Order by Hits property of IRanked<User>
.Take(10);
Be aware that the ToRanked() method uses the search terms of the Containing() method combined with the properties to search to build its hit count. The fluent ToRanked() method also means the old RankedSearch method is now depreciated. It still lives in the code but will soon be removed so please update your code to use the fluent api.
As of release 1.1, NinjaNye.SearchExtensions supports converting and searching for words that sound like a given word.
###How to: Performing Soundex searches
Returning records that 'sound like' "test" using the Soundex algorythm:
Search where a single property sounds like a single search term
var result = data.Search(x => x.Property1).Soundex("test")
Search where a any of multiple properties sounds like a single search term
var result = data.Search(x => x.Property1, x => x.PropertyTwo)
.Soundex("test")
Search where a single property sounds like any one of multiple search terms
var result = data.Search(x => x.Property1).Soundex("test", "another")
Search where a any of multiple properties sounds like any of multiple search terms
var result = data.Search(x => x.Property1, x => x.PropertyTwo)
.Soundex("test", "another")
The above methods can also be applied to
IQueryabledata. ForIQueryablewe reduce the amount of records returned from the data source as much as possible but be aware that the soundex searching is performed on the in memory collection.
For more information about the Soundex search functionality, soundex search performance, and how it has been integrated with IQueryable, please visit http://jnye.co/soundex
And that is it. If you have any new feature requests, questions, or comments, please get in touch, either, via my website, twitter or these github pages.
- Ability to perform AND search on IRanked results
- Levenshtein support
- Fuzzy search support
- IQueryable implementation improvements (remove null records)