Dynamic 'table' name in LINQ to entities

Question

I need to select from varying levels of reporting department tables, i.e. Dept1, Dept2, Dept3, ect. [1] depending on which reporting level the user chooses. How can I dynamically express the 'table' to select from based on a given string parameter, which is the table name?

[1] Easy points (lets talk) for anyone that can help me out of this, deeper mess than the question exposed.

BREAKING NEWS: Looks like I'm going with a 'switch/case' construct. I'm tired of poring over idiotic non-solutions, and the first intelligent one I found doesn't work easily enought (without generations monastic, secluded dedication). The customer's needs come before mine.

That's a really bad way to organize data, but I suspect you're getting to understand that now. — Lasse V. Karlsen
– Lasse V. Karlsen, Commented Sep 19, 2009 at 16:15
I've understood that since college, but I can't always use my own designs from the word go. :-( — ProfK
– ProfK, Commented Sep 19, 2009 at 17:18
-1 for unnecessary vitriol and attempted clever phrasings. Stick to the point, please. — Odrade
– Odrade, Commented Jan 11, 2011 at 0:51

Quintin Robinson · Accepted Answer · 2009-09-19 16:00:50Z

1

I don't believe the EF has an equivalent of Linq->SQL's GetTable yet although I did find this post about a possibly future implementation of GetEntitySet as well as a simple implementation you can use I would check it out.

answered Sep 19, 2009 at 16:00

Quintin Robinson

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ProfK Over a year ago

There is one good candidate solution on that post, drowning in a black sea of utter stupidity and density such as only seen in radioactive metals.

Stephen Jennings · Accepted Answer · 2009-09-19 16:03:09Z

0

Do you have the ability to change the schema? I suspect you are asking this question because you don't, but if you do, it might be easier to have a Department table which defines a department name and its ID. Then, you can have a single table with the entities you are searching for and a foreign key pointing to a department.

So, if the entities you are trying to query are employees, your tables might look like this:

Department
------------
ID     int
Name   text

Employee
--------------------
ID             int
Name           text
DepartmentID   int

Then your query might look something like this:

var Employees = from emp in db.Employee.Include("Department")
                where emp.Department.Name == "Sales"
                select emp;

answered Sep 19, 2009 at 16:03

Stephen Jennings

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1 Comment

ProfK Over a year ago

I can change the schema, but only later, with an incremental rewrite. I can't change it today to solve this problem.

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