UserInputFilter Class
Provides a base class for all user input filters in the Business Data Connectivity (BDC) service.
Inheritance Hierarchy
System.Object
System.MarshalByRefObject
Microsoft.Office.BusinessData.Runtime.FilterBase
Microsoft.Office.BusinessData.Runtime.UserInputFilter
Microsoft.Office.BusinessData.Runtime.ComparisonFilter
Microsoft.Office.BusinessData.Runtime.LimitFilter
Microsoft.Office.BusinessData.Runtime.PageNumberFilter
Namespace: Microsoft.Office.BusinessData.Runtime
Assembly: Microsoft.Office.BusinessData (in Microsoft.Office.BusinessData.dll)
Syntax
'Declaration
<SerializableAttribute> _
Public MustInherit Class UserInputFilter _
Inherits FilterBase _
Implements IUserInputFilter, IFilter
'Usage
Dim instance As UserInputFilter
[SerializableAttribute]
public abstract class UserInputFilter : FilterBase,
IUserInputFilter, IFilter
Remarks
There are two kinds of filters in the BDC:
User Input filters Require users to provide filter values such as the Comparison, Limit and the Wildcard filters.
System filters System-provided filters such as UserContext or UserCulture.
For more information about the types of filters, see Types of Filters Supported by the Business Data Connectivity Service.
Following are the User Input filters that BDC supports:
**Comparison filter **Takes an operator and a condition and returns only the instances that meet the condition. Note that this is the likely behavior as it is up to the external system to implement this filter.
**Limit filter **Potentially limits the number of instances returned to n. Note that the LimitFilter is a hint for the external system. As such, the external system can ignore this value but it is recommended that it enforces it. Thus, the LimitFilter does not necessarily prevent long wait times but rather reduces the possibility of long wait times.
Page number filter Enables pagination to be provided by the external system.
**Wildcard filter **Limits the instances returned to those where a field such as a field named value, where value may contain the asterisk (*) wildcard character. Users can use this filter type to present more user-friendly filters such as "starts with" and "contains".
Thread Safety
Any public static (Shared in Visual Basic) members of this type are thread safe. Any instance members are not guaranteed to be thread safe.