Accent insensitive in filter backend to datatable in ASP.NET MVC 5 - entity-framework

Question

I made a method on the back-end side to handle the filter of my datatable.
On the other hand, this one does not manage the accents of the French language, so if I have "école" and I write "ecole" it cannot find it.
I found this method on another question on stackoverflow
public static String RemoveDiacritics(this String s)
{
String normalizedString = s.Normalize(NormalizationForm.FormD);
StringBuilder stringBuilder = new StringBuilder();
for (int i = 0; i < normalizedString.Length; i++)
{
Char c = normalizedString[i];
if (CharUnicodeInfo.GetUnicodeCategory(c) != UnicodeCategory.NonSpacingMark)
{
stringBuilder.Append(c);
}
}
return stringBuilder.ToString().Normalize(NormalizationForm.FormC);
}
and it works, but only for part of my problem. It works on the letter or the word that is written in the search, but I am not able to apply it in my linq query, so with the .RemoveDiacritics() method my "école" becomes "ecole", but I don't am not able to apply it in the column of my table and it always looks for "école".
Here the code for the search:
if (search != null)
{
int n;
search = search.Trim();
var isNumeric = int.TryParse(search, out n);
if (isNumeric)
{
IdFilter = n;
query = query.Where(x => x.UsagerId == IdFilter || x.Niveau == IdFilter);
}
else if (search != "")
{
// this line work
textFilter = search.ToLower().RemoveDiacritics();
// This is the full line, but absolutely takes the accents out to get the right information out
// query = query.Where(x => x.Nom.ToLower().Contains(textFilter) || x.Prenom.ToLower().Contains(textFilter) || x.Username.ToLower().Contains(textFilter) || x.Email.ToLower().Contains(textFilter) || x.EtabNom.ToLower().Contains(textFilter) || x.ActifStatut.ToLower().Contains(textFilter));
// This is the line that will replace the line above, which I try and it doesn't work ( this part: x.Prenom.ToLower().RemoveDiacritics())
query = query.Where(x => x.Prenom.ToLower().RemoveDiacritics().Contains(textFilter));
}
}
This is the basic query:
IQueryable<ListeUsagers> query = (from u in db.USAGERs
join e in db.ETABLISSEMENTs on u.USAGER_INST equals e.ETAB_CODE
where u.USAGER_INST == instId && u.USAGER_NIVEAU > 3 && u.USAGER_NIVEAU < 5 //&& u.USAGER_ACTIF == 1
select new ListeUsagers()
{
UsagerId = u.USAGER_id,
Nom = u.USAGER_NOM,
Prenom = u.USAGER_PRENOM,
EtabCode = e.ETAB_CODE,
EtabNom = e.ETAB_NOM_COURT,
EtabType = e.ETAB_TYPE,
Niveau = u.USAGER_NIVEAU,
Username = u.USAGER_USERNAME,
UserPassword = u.USAGER_MP,
DateCreation = u.USAGER_DATE_INSC,
Sexe = u.USAGER_SEXE,
Lang = u.USAGER_LANGUE,
Telephone = u.USAGER_TELEPHONE,
Email = u.USAGER_EMAIL,
FonctionTravail = u.USAGER_FONCTION,
LieuTravail = u.USAGER_LIEUTRAVAIL,
Note = u.USAGER_NOTE,
Actif = u.USAGER_ACTIF,
ActifStatut = u.USAGER_ACTIF == 0 ? "Inactif" : "Actif"
});
This is the error:
LINQ to Entities does not recognize the method 'System.String RemoveDiacritics(System.String)' method, and this method cannot be translated into a store expression.

Answer 1

There's built-in functionality to do this in entityframework: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/ef/core/miscellaneous/collations-and-case-sensitivity if you're using EF 5+
You'll want an accent insensitive collation ("AI", not "AS" in the examples on that page.)