MongoDB SQL ‘Like’ Query Examples using C#

Today in this article, we shall see how to write MongoDB Like Query using C# MongoDB driver with regex pattern with case sensitive and insensitive search for example.

Today in this article, we will cover below aspects,

If you are interested in learning a query without a regex pattern, then please visit the below article,

MongoDB Like Query without Regex– Guidelines

I have a sample MongoDB document as below in one of the collections.

Here we shall be trying to search all the documents using a C# bson query similar to “Like“.

Scenario 1 – MongoDB Regex like Query

Let’s build C# regex query for getting Author names where the name contains a word like “J” or “j” for the Author field.

Assumptions:

“J” or “j” could be contained at the start or last or in the middle or anywhere else of Author’s name.

Query pattern

var queryExpr = new BsonRegularExpression(new Regex(search, RegexOptions.None));

C# MongoDb regex query with case-sensitive search

The above query will return to me all the Author that contains the search criteria “J” or “j” in the field value.

Query Result

C# MongoDb regex query with case-insensitive search

Query Pattern

 var queryExpr = new BsonRegularExpression(new Regex(search, RegexOptions.IgnoreCase)); 

Query Result

The above query returns all the “Authors” whose names contain either “J” or “j”

Scenario 2 – MongoDB C# Regex query start with ‘like’

Let’s build a query to get the list of items that start with some search criteria. 

Example “Ro” for Author field.

Query pattern

{ Field Name : /^J/ }


Where "J" is your search cretieria.

Example Query

filter = builder.Regex("Author", "^" + search + ".*");

Search Result:

The above query returns all the Authors which starts with “J” values.

For Case insensitive query please prepare a query as explained in the above first example.

Scenarios 3 – MongoDB C# Regex query end with ‘like’

Let’s build a query to Get the list of items that ends with some search criteria. 

Example “robert” for the Author field

Query pattern

{ Field Name : { '$regex' :  'robert$' ,  '$options' : 'i' } }

Where ‘robert‘ is your search criteria

Example Query

filter = builder.Regex("Author", "robert"+ "$");

Above query, we have Author “Julia Robert” that matches with search criteria.

Scenarios 4 – C# Mongo Query Exact Match

Let’s look into regex exact Match MongoDB Query.

Query pattern

{ Author :{'$regex' : '^test$', '$options' : 'i'}}

Where ‘test’ is your search criteria

Example Query:

filter = builder.Regex("Author", "^" + search + "$");

Where ‘julia robert’ is our exact search criteria.

Here Author field value has to match exactly.

References:

• MongoDB Like Query without Regex– Guidelines

Do you have any comments or ideas or any better suggestions to share?

Please sound off your comments below.

Happy Coding !!

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