LINQ Unleashed: for C#

Microsoft’s highly anticipated LINQ query technology makes it easy to retrieve any information programmatically from any data source, no matter where it comes from or how it’s stored. Using LINQ, developers can query objects, relational databases, XML documents, and ADO.NET datasets--and do it all directly from C# 3.0, leveraging the powerful capabilities of LINQ.

This is a definitive guide to getting real-world results with LINQ, using C# 3.0 and Visual Studio 2008. In LINQ Unleashed, Microsoft MVP Paul Kimmel covers every facet of LINQ programming, showing how LINQ can help you dramatically improve your productivity and build more reliable, maintainable applications.

Kimmel begins by reviewing the state-of-the-art C# programming techniques LINQ uses, including anonymous types, partial methods, and Lambda expressions. Next, using realistic examples and easy-to-adapt sample code, he details the most powerful new LINQ techniques for accessing objects, databases, and XML. You’ll gain a deep and practical understanding of how LINQ works “under the hood”--and learn how to do everything from selecting data through integrating XML with other data models.

* Build efficient LINQ queries to .NET objects, SQL databases, and XML content
* Utilize anonymous types to reduce design time, coding effort, and debugging time
* Automatically generate .NET state machines with the new yield return construct
* Master LINQ query syntax, operators, extension methods, sorting, grouping, aggregate and set operations, and more
* Make the most of select--and use it in the business layer of your n-tier applications
* Query relational data stored in Microsoft SQL Server
* Use nullable types to eliminate unnecessary database access plumbing code
* Use LINQ with ADO.NET 3.0 and Microsoft’s powerful new Entity Framework
* Extract XML data without the hassles or complexity of XPath
* Automatically construct XML from CSV files and other non-XML data
* Query Active Directory by extending LINQ

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Pro LINQ Object Relational Mapping in C# 2008

It is nearly impossible today to write enterprise software without the use of one or more relational databases. Granted, there are cases when the data is transient and not stored in a database, but for the most part, software needs to consume and manipulate data in a database. It sounds easy, but there are hundreds of ways to connect software systems to databases and thousands of people who think they have the skeleton key for data access layers. Pro LINQ Object Relational Mapping in C# 2008 explains an efficient, repeatable way to apply industry design patterns to build scalable object–oriented data access layers.

Object relational mapping (OR/M) has been a gray area in Microsoft development for many years. It’s not that Microsoft language developers don’t understand OR/M; in fact, the opposite is true, as is exemplified by the glut of third–party .NET OR/M tools on the market. The struggle has come more from the lack of native tools with the object–oriented and object persistence capacity to effectively work in this arena. With the inception of .NET, Microsoft overcame the first obstacle by developing an object–oriented environment and framework. The second obstacle, the native object persistence layer, is only now being realized with the introduction of Language Integrated Query (LINQ) and LINQ’s children, the Language Integrated Query for Relational Databases (LINQ to SQL) and the Language Integrated Query for the ADO.NET Entity Framework (LINQ to Entities). The gray area no longer exists, and the .NET developers of the world finally have the native tools required to build modular, reusable data access layers.

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LINQ for Visual C# 2008

Every C# programmer needs to learn about LINQ (Language–lIntegrated Query), Microsoft’s breakthrough technology for simplifying and unifying data access from any data source. With LINQ you can write more elegant and flexible code not just to access databases and files but to manipulate data structures and XML.

This book is a short yet comprehensive guide to the major features of LINQ and the significant enhancements introduced with .NET 3.5. There is no better source for getting a head–start on the future of these technologies than this book.

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LINQ Pocket Reference

Book Description

Ready to take advantage of LINQ with C# 3.0? This guide has the detail you need to grasp Microsoft's new querying technology, and concise explanations to help you learn it quickly. And once you begin to apply LINQ, the book serves as an on-the-job reference when you need immediate reminders. All the examples in the LINQ Pocket Reference are preloaded into LINQPad, the highly praised utility that lets you work with LINQ interactively. Created by the authors and free to download, LINQPad will not only help you learn LINQ, it will have you thinking in LINQ. This reference explains: LINQ's key concepts, such as deferred execution, iterator chaining, and type inference in lambda expressions The differences between local and interpreted queries C# 3.0's query syntax in detail-including multiple generators, joining, grouping, query continuations, and more Query syntax versus lambda syntax, and mixed syntax queries Composition and projection strategies for complex queries All of LINQ's 40-plus query operators How to write efficient LINQ to SQL queries How to build expression trees from scratch All of LINQ to XML's types and their advanced use LINQ promises to be the locus of a thriving ecosystem for many years to come. This small book gives you a huge head start. "The authors built a tool (LINQPad) that lets you experiment with LINQ interactively in a way that the designers of LINQ themselves don't support, and the tool has all kinds of wonderful features that LINQ, SQL and Regular Expression programmers alike will want to use regularly long after they've read the book." -Chris Sells, Connected Systems Program Manager, Microsoft.

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LINQ Quickly

Book Description

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.

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