Dynamically Adding a GroupBy to a Lamba Expression

Question

Hi guys, Ok, I'll admit that I don't entirely "get" lamda expressions and LINQ expression trees yet; a lot of what I'm doing is cutting and pasting and seeing what works. I've looked over lots of documentation, but I still haven't found the my "aha" moment yet.

With that being said...

I'm attempting to dynamically add a GroupBy expression to my Linq expression. I followed the question here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1650346/need-help-creating-linq-expression-to-enumerable-groupby

and tried to implement what I saw there.

First off, I've got entity classes for my database, and a table calledObjCurLocViewNormalized

I've got an method that does the initial call,

public IQueryable<ObjCurLocViewNormalized> getLocations()
{
    IQueryable<ObjCurLocViewNormalized> res = (from loc in tms.ObjCurLocViewNormalized
                               select loc);
    return res;
}

so I can call:

IQueryable<MetAmericanLinqDataModel.ObjCurLocViewNormalized> locations = american.getLocations();

No problem so far.

Now, I want to group by an arbitrary column, with a call like this:

var grouped = locations.addGroupBy(childLocationFieldName);

Right now, I have a method :

static public System.Linq.IQueryable<System.Linq.IGrouping<string, TResult>> addGroupBy<TResult>(this IQueryable<TResult> query, string columnName)
{

    var providerType = query.Provider.GetType();
    // Find the specific type parameter (the T in IQueryable<T>)
    var iqueryableT = providerType.FindInterfaces((ty, obj) => ty.IsGenericType && ty.GetGenericTypeDefinition() == typeof(IQueryable<>), null).FirstOrDefault();
    var tableType = iqueryableT.GetGenericArguments()[0];
    var tableName = tableType.Name;

    var data = Expression.Parameter(iqueryableT, "query");
    var arg = Expression.Parameter(tableType, tableName);
    var nameProperty = Expression.PropertyOrField(arg, columnName);
    var lambda = Expression.Lambda<Func<TResult, string>>(nameProperty, arg);

    var expression = Expression.Call(typeof(Enumerable), 
                                    "GroupBy", 
                                    new Type[] { tableType, typeof(string) },
                                    data, 
                                    lambda);
    var predicate = Expression.Lambda<Func<TResult, String>>(expression, arg); // this is the line that produces the error I describe below
    var result = query.GroupBy(predicate).AsQueryable();
    return result;
}

All this compiles ok, but when I run it, I get the error:

System.ArgumentException: Expression of type 'System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable`1[System.Linq.IGrouping`2[System.String,MetAmericanLinqDataModel.ObjCurLocViewNormalized]]' cannot be used for return type 'System.String'

and the error comes from this line:

 var predicate = Expression.Lambda<Func<TResult, String>>(expression, arg);

I'm copying and adapting this code from successful work I did in dynamically added Where clauses to an expression. So I'm sort of stabbing in the dark here.

If anyone out there can help to shed some light on this, Obviously posting complete working code and doing all my thinking for me would be great :), but if you could just lay out just why this is wrong, or how to wrap my head around these concepts, that would be great. If you can point to documentation that can really help be bridge the gap between the basics of lamba expressions, and building dynamic expression trees, that would be great. There's obviously big holes in my knowledge, but I think this information could be useful to others.

thanks everyone for your time, and of course if I find the answer elsewhere, I'll post it here.

Thanks again.

Don

Answer 1

All that you need to do to make it work is the following:

    static public IQueryable<IGrouping<TValue, TResult>> addGroupBy<TValue, TResult>(
                this IQueryable<TResult> query, string columnName)
            {
            var providerType = query.Provider.GetType();

            // Find the specific type parameter (the T in IQueryable<T>)
            const object EmptyfilterCriteria = null;
            var iqueryableT = providerType
                .FindInterfaces((ty, obj) => ty.IsGenericType && ty.GetGenericTypeDefinition() == typeof(IQueryable<>), EmptyfilterCriteria)
                .FirstOrDefault();
            Type tableType = iqueryableT.GetGenericArguments()[0];
            string tableName = tableType.Name;

            ParameterExpression data = Expression.Parameter(iqueryableT, "query");
            ParameterExpression arg = Expression.Parameter(tableType, tableName);
            MemberExpression nameProperty = Expression.PropertyOrField(arg, columnName);
            Expression<Func<TResult, TValue>> lambda = Expression.Lambda<Func<TResult, TValue>>(nameProperty, arg);
            //here you already have delegate in the form of "TResult => TResult.columnName"
            return query.GroupBy(lambda);

        /*var expression = Expression.Call(typeof(Enumerable), 
                                        "GroupBy", 
                                        new Type[] { tableType, typeof(string) },
                                        data, 
                                        lambda);
        var predicate = Expression.Lambda<Func<TResult, String>>(expression, arg); // this is the line that produces the error I describe below
        var result = query.GroupBy(predicate).AsQueryable();
        return result;*/
    }

And you will call you expression in the following manner:

var grouped = locations.addGroupBy<string, ObjCurLocViewNormalized>(childLocationFieldName);

First generic parameter "string" us used for saying explicilty what type of elements you a grouping on. For example you can group by "int" field and method call will be like following:

var grouped = locations.addGroupBy<int, ObjCurLocViewNormalized>(someFieldNameWithTheTypeOfInt);

Edit Just to finish this solution your way:

 //return query.GroupBy(lambda);
    MethodCallExpression expression = Expression.Call(typeof (Enumerable),
                                                      "GroupBy",
                                                      new[] { typeof(TResult), typeof(TValue) },
                                                      data,
                                                      lambda);

    var result = Expression.Lambda(expression, data).Compile().DynamicInvoke(query);
    return ((IEnumerable<IGrouping<TValue, TResult>>)result).AsQueryable();

Answer 2

The solution should be pretty simple:

public static IQueryable<IGrouping<TColumn, T>> DynamicGroupBy<T, TColumn>(
    IQueryable<T> source, string column)
{
    PropertyInfo columnProperty = typeof(T).GetProperty(column);
    var sourceParm = Expression.Parameter(typeof(T), "x");
    var propertyReference = Expression.Property(sourceParm, columnProperty);
    var groupBySelector = Expression.Lambda<Func<T, TColumn>>(propertyReference, sourceParm);

    return source.GroupBy(groupBySelector);
}

Assuming a sample class like this:

public class TestClass
{
    public string TestProperty { get; set; }
}

You invoke it like this:

var list = new List<TestClass>();
var queryable = list.AsQueryable();
DynamicGroupBy<TestClass, string>(queryable, "TestProperty");