Google-like LINQ search

[MrDudeMan]

I found this and then used it in a WPF/C# project and it worked very well. I thought I'd pass it along in case anyone else is interested.

Link

From the link, here's a quick example of how you use it:

string[] columns_to_search = {"first_name", "last_name", "email_address", "category.category_name"};
string[] search_terms = {"stan"};
var search_results = new dbDataContext()._users.Search(columns_to_search, search_terms);

You can give it a list of fields to search and a search string, which it will then do exactly what you think it does: search every field for the string (contains). It can get a more complex to handle varying data types like so:

foreach (string s in search_string.Split(search_delimiters))
    {
        if (Int32.TryParse(s, out obInt)) obs.Add(obInt);
        else if (DateTime.TryParse(s, out obDt)) obs.Add(obDt);
        else if (bool.TryParse(s, out obBool)) obs.Add(obBool);
        else obs.Add(s); // else it's a string
    }