Dynamic query in LINQ

Question

How do I write a dynamic query for Linq, if I have say Customer class which holds the fields:

string name
string address
int phoneno

I have to

Answer 1

You can use the fluent interface and add a new Where clause fpr each condition. Something like:

 var result = from cus in customers select cus;
 if(!string.IsNullOrEmpty(name))
         result= result.Where(p => p.Name == name);

EDIT upon hte comment:

if you are querying over a collection in memory, you could retrieve the properties using reflection.

private Customer[] GetCustomers(Dictionary attributes)
{
      var result = from cus in customers select cus;    

      foreach(string key in attributes.Keys)
             result= result.Where(p => GetProperty(p, key )== attributes[key]);

         return result.ToList();    
}

Supposing GetProperty retrieve the property by reflection.

Using Linq2Sql this method will result in retrieving all record an then iterating over them using reflection.