Calling a function within Entity Framework Select - vb.net

Question

A property from my object (oJobs) is as follows:
Private _brandlist As List(Of DAL.Brand)
Public Property PostBrandList() As List(Of DAL.Brand)
Get
Return _brandlist
End Get
Set(ByVal value As List(Of DAL.Brand))
_brandlist = value
End Set
End Property
In the database, the brand list is stored as a string separated by comma e.g. the column 'brands' can be a string '3,45,2' where each number represents an id of a brand stored in another table.
my select query is as below:
Dim jobposts As List(Of oJobs) = From j In db.JobPostings
Select New oJobs With { 'hiding all others for code brevity
.PostBrandList = 'problem is here'
}
Since j.BrandList will return a string, I will need to split that string and for each number, run another query to finally return and assign a List(Of DAL.Brand) into .PostBrandList
For those who might ask "what have you tried?",
I have run the query, then did a for each to add the list of brands later - succeeded but not optimal
Coded a function that takes the list as a parameter and returns a separate list of objects - very silly.
Also, I am not allowed to normalize the DB :(

Answer 1

Not tested and might need some tweaking but heres one idea. you will also need to change your property to an IEnumerable rather than List. Because the second linq query is embedded within the first, I believe it should execute it all as one query, but you should check it to make sure.
Dim jobposts As List(Of oJobs) = From j In db.JobPostings
Select New oJobs With { 'hiding all others for code brevity
.PostBrandList = From b In db.Brands Where j.Brands = b.ID Or j.Brands.StartsWith(b.ID & ",") Or j.Brands.EndsWith("," & b.ID) Or j.Brands.Contains("," & b.ID & ",") Select b
}

Answer 2

In c# you can use
.Select(x=>new {x.BrandList})
.ToList() //Materialize first before calling function
.Select(x=> new oJobs{
PostBrandList =
db.Brands.Where(z=>
x.BrandList
.Split(',')
.Select(y=>int.Parse(y.Trim()))
.Contains(z.Id))
.ToList()
});
Note that you must materialize entity first before calling String.Split
I don't know how to translate that to VB.NET.
Of course it will cause SELECT n+1 problem because you can't use join.
If you can't normalize table, my other suggestion is to create indexed view (sql server), so you can use join and improve performance.
Indexed view https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms191432.aspx

Answer 3

You could try it with the Let statement:
Dim jobposts As List(Of oJobs) = From j In db.JobPostings
/* li in the LINQ Statement represents one string value from the BrandList list */
Let postBrandElemsList = j.BrandList.Split(',').Select(Function(li) New DAL.Brand With { ... /* Field initializatione of the Class DAL.Brand here */ }
Select New oJobs With
{
.PostBrandList = postBrandElemsList
}
I'm sorry for the probably bad VB.NET syntax, you should check this when implementing it in your code.

Answer 4

Maybe you would just want to use the Split function on the column brands into an array and iterate through the result, using the Find function to retrieve the brand objects?