Simple.Data

Simple.Data defines a number of commands for retrieving data from a data store. These can then be daisychained in a LINQ-like fashion with further methods to modify the basic query. For example, Simple.Data includes a method to return the length of a field as a string.

Length

Return the number of characters in a text field or in the text representation of a field.

Syntax

public FunctionReference Length( )

Parameters

Length takes no parameters

Return Value

Type: FunctionReference
A reference to a column being selected with a string length function applied to it

Exceptions

Exception	Condition
`InvalidOperationException`	`Length` has been used or daisychained to a base function (All, FindAllBy, …) rather than to a column in a `Select` clause.
`NullReferenceException`	`Length` has been daisychained to a table reference rather than a column reference within a `Select` clause.
`ArgumentException`	You have passed one or more arguments to `Length`

Note that issues #289 - #290 are still open with regards to exceptions thrown by Length.

Remarks

Length must be called only within a Select clause, appended to one of the fields being selected.

Unless otherwise aliased, or cast to a scalar value, you can access the length value in the returned SimpleRecord object using the empty string as a key
If calling Length on a non-string field, the value returned is that of the string representation of that field
Calls to Length will not apply grouping to the query.

Examples

1

To return the length of each title of the Albums in the Albums table, and reference it as TitleLength, use the following code:

var details = db.Albums.Select(db.Albums.Title.Length().As("TitleLength"));

Simple.Data sends the following SQL to the database when details is evaluated

select 
   len([dbo].[Albums].[Title]) AS [NameLength]
from [dbo].[Albums]