NHibernate: Add criteria if param not null - nhibernate

Question

I'm trying to retrieve a list of orders based on parameters specified by a user (basic search functionality). The user will enter either an orderId or a bunch of other params, those will get wrapped up into a message, and eventually make their way to the method below. My question is, how do I only look at the parameters that actually have values? So if a user were to enter a received date range and a store number and all other fields were null, I want to return orders for stores received in the date range and ignore all the null parameters. At first I was thinking I could use a conjunction, but I can't see a way to ignore the null parameters. Then I started splitting things out into the if statements below the main expression, but I don't want to look at those criteria if the user provides an externalId. Is there a simple way to do this?
public IList<Core.Order> GetOrderByCriteria
(
string ExternalId,
int? Store,
int? Status,
DateTime? beforeTransmissionDate, DateTime? afterTransmissionDate,
DateTime? beforeAllocationProcessDate, DateTime? afterAllocationProcessDate,
DateTime? beforeReceivedDate, DateTime? afterReceivedDate
)
{
try
{
NHibernate.ICriteria criteria = NHibernateSession.CreateCriteria(typeof(Core.Order))
.Add(Expression.Or
(
Expression.Like("ExternalId", ExternalId),
Expression.Conjunction()
.Add(Expression.Between("ReceivedDate", beforeReceivedDate, afterReceivedDate))
.Add(Expression.Between("TransmissionDate", beforeTransmissionDate, afterTransmissionDate))
.Add(Expression.Between("AllocationProcessDate", beforeAllocationProcessDate, afterAllocationProcessDate))
)
);
if(Store.HasValue)
criteria.Add(Expression.Eq("Status", Status));
if(Status.HasValue)
criteria.Add(Expression.Eq("Store", Store));
return criteria.List<Core.Order>();
}
catch (NHibernate.HibernateException he)
{
DataAccessException dae = new DataAccessException("NHibernate Exception", he);
throw dae;
}
}

Answer 1

I wound up dropping the whole conjunction thing and replacing the code in the try block with the code below. I also used joins which reduced the number of db accesses and reduced the amount of code needed.
NHibernate.ICriteria criteria = NHibernateSession.CreateCriteria(typeof(Core.Order));
if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(ExternalId))
{
criteria.Add(Expression.Like("ExternalId", ExternalId));
}
if (beforeReceivedDate != null && afterReceivedDate != null)
criteria.Add(Expression.Between("ReceivedDate", beforeReceivedDate, afterReceivedDate));
if (beforeTransmissionDate != null && afterTransmissionDate != null)
criteria.Add(Expression.Between("TransmissionDate", beforeTransmissionDate, afterTransmissionDate));
if (beforeAllocationProcessDate != null && afterAllocationProcessDate != null)
criteria.Add(Expression.Between("AllocationProcessDate", beforeAllocationProcessDate, afterAllocationProcessDate));
if (Store.HasValue)
criteria.CreateCriteria("Store", "Store").Add(Expression.Eq("Store.LocationNumber", Store.Value));
return criteria.List<Core.Order>();

Answer 2

I had to do something similar not long ago. I'm pretty sure you can modify this to fit your needs.
private ICriteria AddSearchCriteria(ICriteria criteria, string fieldName, string value)
{
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(fieldName))
return criteria;
if(string.IsNullOrEmpty(value))
return criteria;
criteria.Add(Expression.Like(fieldName, "%" + value + "%"));
return criteria;
}
The code calling the method ended up looking like this:
var query = session.CreateCriteria(typeof (User));
AddSearchCriteria(query, "FirstName", form["FirstName"]);
AddSearchCriteria(query, "LastName", form["LastName"]);
var resultList = new List<User>();
query.List(resultList);
return resultList;
Leave it up to the function to determine if the input is valid and whether to return the unmodified ICriteria or to add another Expression before returning it.