How to select items containing any word in a string using Entity Framework 6?

Question

I've a table that contains details of Members. The Name field will be having values like "John Antony", "Sarah Ann Mathew", "Josh John".

How do I select all members who are having names containing any of the words in "John, Ann, Mathew".

I've tried implementations like db.members.Where(m=>names.Contains(m.Name)); but the issue is that I am trying to match any word in m.Name.

Thanks in advance.

Make `names` a collection of strings `{"John", "Ann", "Mathew"}` and try `db.members.Where(m=>names.Any(n => m.Contains(n)));` — Sergey Kalinichenko, Mar 13 '14 at 18:03
@dasblinkenlight It works. Please post it as an answer. I shall accept it. :) — Libin TK, Mar 13 '14 at 18:12

Sergey Kalinichenko · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-14T07:17:58.913

4

If you make names a collection of strings, like this {"John", "Ann", "Mathew"}, you can rewrite your query as follows:

var res = db.members.Where(m=>names.Any(n => m.Name.Contains(n)));

edited Jul 14 '17 at 07:17

answered Mar 13 '14 at 18:13

1

just watch out for case sensitivity – Miles Mar 13 '14 at 18:15
@Miles Yes. found that issue `"John"` matches `"jonathan swift"` too. Is there any way to match the whole word or match case? – Libin TK Mar 13 '14 at 18:18
2

@LibinTK Here is [an answer about case sensitivity](http://stackoverflow.com/a/3360808/335858). Exact matches are a little trickier - you may want to to use EF for fast pre-filtering, and then do additional filtering in memory with regex. Regex lets you add `\b` on both sides of a name for word boundaries - something you cannot do with EF's `Contains`. – Sergey Kalinichenko Mar 13 '14 at 18:23
@RalphLavelle Thanks! – Sergey Kalinichenko Jul 14 '17 at 07:18

1 Answers1