Is there any way of doing this at all? I have a string field in the DB and I want to parse it into a int property in my LINQ query (yes, it must be at the IQueryable level, not in memory).

I know 2 years ago EF 1.0 couldn't do this (even though LINQ to SQL supported this basic functionality out of the box)...but I'm just wondering if anyone has come up with a way of doing this at this point?

Custom function mappings? Special syntax? Anything at all....

UPDATE:

I tried a model defined function as follows:

    <Function Name="ConvertToInt32" ReturnType="Edm.Int32">
      <Parameter Name="v" Type="Edm.String" />
      <DefiningExpression>
        CAST(v AS INT)
      </DefiningExpression>
    </Function>

    [EdmFunction("Model.Repository", "ConvertToInt32")]
    public static int ConvertToInt32(string value)
    {
        throw new InvalidOperationException("Only valid when used as part of a LINQ query.");
    }

but it doesn't seem to work. I get the runtime exception:

        ErrorDescription=Type 'INT' could not be found. Make sure that the required schemas are loaded and that the namespaces are imported correctly.
        StackTrace:
             at System.Data.Common.EntitySql.SemanticAnalyzer.ConvertTypeName(Node typeName, SemanticResolver sr)
             at System.Data.Common.EntitySql.SemanticAnalyzer.ConvertTypeExprArgs(BuiltInExpr astBuiltInExpr, SemanticResolver sr)
             at System.Data.Common.EntitySql.SemanticAnalyzer.<CreateBuiltInExprConverter>b__73(BuiltInExpr bltInExpr, SemanticResolver sr)
             at System.Data.Common.EntitySql.SemanticAnalyzer.ConvertBuiltIn(Node astExpr, SemanticResolver sr)
             at System.Data.Common.EntitySql.SemanticAnalyzer.Convert(Node astExpr, SemanticResolver sr)
             at System.Data.Common.EntitySql.SemanticAnalyzer.ConvertValueExpression(Node astExpr, SemanticResolver sr)
linq entity-framework entity-framework-4 linq-to-entities
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