Iciclecreek.OData.Linq

Iciclecreek.OData.Linq

Lightweight library which applies OData query strings ($filter, $orderby, $select, $top, $skip) to any IQueryable<T>.

Overview

Most OData libraries pull in the full Microsoft OData stack — EDM model builders, ASP.NET Core middleware, service containers, and megabytes of transitive dependencies — just to parse a filter string. Iciclecreek.OData.Linq takes a different approach: a lightweight, hand-rolled parser with zero external dependencies that converts OData query strings directly into LINQ expressions.

This means it works with any IQueryable<T> provider — Entity Framework, in-memory collections, Lucene.Net.Linq, or any other LINQ-compatible data source — without requiring EDM model definitions, OData controllers, or ASP.NET middleware.

Supported OData features

Install

dotnet add package Iciclecreek.OData.Linq

Usage

Add the namespace:

using Iciclecreek.OData.Linq;

Basic filtering

var results = people.AsQueryable()
    .OData()
    .Filter("Name eq 'Alice' and Age gt 21")
    .ToQueryable()
    .ToList();

Ordering

var results = people.AsQueryable()
    .OData()
    .OrderBy("Name desc, Age asc")
    .ToQueryable()
    .ToList();

Projection

Select returns IQueryable<T> with only the named properties populated (others get their default values):

var results = people.AsQueryable()
    .OData()
    .Select("Name, Age")
    .ToQueryable()
    .ToList();
// Each result has Name and Age set; all other properties are defaults

Paging

var results = people.AsQueryable()
    .OData()
    .Skip(10)
    .Top(5)
    .ToQueryable()
    .ToList();

Full pipeline

All operations can be chained together. They are applied in order: Filter, OrderBy, Skip, Top, Select.

var results = people.AsQueryable()
    .OData()
    .Filter("IsActive eq true and Salary gt 50000")
    .OrderBy("Salary desc")
    .Skip(10)
    .Top(5)
    .Select("Name, Salary")
    .ToQueryable()
    .ToList();

String functions

// Contains
.Filter("contains(Name, 'smith')")

// Starts with / ends with
.Filter("startswith(Email, 'admin')")
.Filter("endswith(Email, '.com')")

// Case-insensitive comparison
.Filter("tolower(Name) eq 'alice'")

// String length
.Filter("length(Name) gt 10")

// Substring
.Filter("substring(Name, 0, 3) eq 'Ali'")

// Concatenation
.Filter("concat(FirstName, LastName) eq 'AliceSmith'")

The in operator

.Filter("Status in ('Active', 'Pending', 'Review')")
.Filter("Age in (25, 30, 35)")

Null handling

.Filter("Email eq null")
.Filter("Email ne null")

DateTimeOffset and Guid literals

.Filter("CreatedAt gt 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z")
.Filter("Id eq guid'12345678-1234-1234-1234-123456789012'")