LINQ Quickly

Paperback: 252 pages
Publisher: Packt Publishing (November 16, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1847192548
ISBN-13: 978-1847192547
Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.6 x 0.3 inches








This book gets you started with LINQ and shows how it will make your programming life easier by making use of new features from the .NET Framework 3.0. This book is split into seven chapters, each of which is dedicated to presenting a feature of LINQ and its usage in real-life scenarios.

Language Integrated Query (LINQ) is a new feature in Visual Studio 2008 that extends its query capabilities, using C# and Visual Basic. Visual Studio 2008 comes with LINQ provider assemblies that enable the use of LINQ with data sources such as in-memory collections, SQL relational databases, ADO.NET Datasets, XML documents, etc.

In Visual Studio 2008, Visual C# and Visual Basic are the languages that implement the LINQ language extensions. LINQ language extensions use the new standard query operators API, which is the query language for any collection that implements IEnumerable.

• LINQ to Objects
• LINQ to XML
• LINQ to SQL
• LINQ to DataSets
• LINQ to XSD

This book introduces the reader to the basic concepts of LINQ, and takes them through using LINQ with an example-driven approach.

This book is for .NET developers who want to find out exactly what LINQ is, what it can do for them, and how to program with LINQ.

This book presumes a sound knowledge of XML, ADO.NET, and .NET data access--No knowledge of LINQ is presumed.


User Review:

The book provides a good overview of LINQ and it's supporting language features, such as anonymous types, implicit typing, object initializers, extension methods, and expressions. It then builds on that introduction to cover the various LINQ implementations, such as LINQ to Objects, LINQ to XML, and LINQ to SQL. A very thorough look at the different Standard Query Operators closes the book.

Also provided are two simple examples that really help highlight the power and flexibility of LINQ. The first example shows how to create a web site that uses LINQ to populate a data grid and some form elements. The other example shows how to use LINQ against the Outlook object model to retrieve the details of an Outlook contact.

One thing that this book mentions very clearly that hasn't been talked about much is that LINQ to SQL is able to make use of not just embedded SQL but also stored procedures and walks the reader through the steps necessary in order to make effective use of LINQ and stored procedures.

While the style of writing in the book was a little hard to follow, the technical content of the book appeared to be both accurate and thorough, taking the most in-depth look at LINQ to XML and then the Standard Query operators.


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