nettiers has a good functions like GetPaged that takes the where clause and search with it. but come on how to make this search with generic code and powerful!!!!
the solution is a magic word, "Reflection"!!! ta da .... you have to make your development framework ideal enough to do that. How?
As I said i am using nettiers this make me support the following: each entity has an interface describes each property. and a good naming convention that I can follow in naming the UI elements such as typed data sources, that nettiers generates, and so i wrote this code...
List<string> lookFor = new List<string>();
Type t = Type.GetType(string.Format("Entities.I{0}, Entities", EntityName));
foreach (PropertyInfo info in t.GetProperties())
{
if (info.PropertyType == Type.GetType("System.String"))
{
lookFor.Add(string.Format(" [{0}] Collate SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS like '%{1}%' ", info.Name, txtName.Text));
}
}
string whereClause = string.Join(" OR ", lookFor.ToArray()) ;
DataSourceControl ds = WebFormUtil.GetControlByID(Page.Controls, EntityName + "DataSource") as DataSourceControl;
PropertyInfo filterProperty = ds.GetType().GetProperty("Parameters");
Object collection = filterProperty.GetValue(ds, null);
if (collection is ParameterCollection)
{
((CustomParameter)((ParameterCollection)collection)["WhereClause"]).Value = whereClause;
}
ds.DataBind();
with just the entity name as a variable, and the well formed structure of the tiers and the good structure of the any form that contains a list and a search box this code rocks. I am able to get the typed data source and attach a value to its attributes and finally get works done and generic.
Thanks to Reflection, it made it possible.
