Beginning ASP.NET 4.5.1: in C# and VB

Chapter 14LINQ and the ADO.NET Entity Framework

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS CHAPTER:

• What LINQ is and what its syntax looks like
• The different forms of LINQ that are available and when they are appropriate to use
• How to use the ADO.NET Entity Framework
• How to use Model Binding to access the ADO.NET Entity Framework
• How to use the ListView and DataPager controls

WROX.COM CODE DOWNLOADS FOR THIS CHAPTER

You can find the wrox.com code downloads for this chapter on the Download Code tab at www.wrox.com/go/begaspnet451. The code is in the Chapter 14 folder.

Language-Integrated Query (LINQ) is the query language that is tightly integrated with the programming languages used in the .NET Framework. LINQ enables you to query data from within .NET programming languages in the same way that SQL enables you to query data in a database. In fact, the LINQ syntax has been modeled partially after the SQL language, making it easier for programmers familiar with SQL to get started with LINQ.

LINQ comes in a few different implementations, enabling you to access and query a wide variety of sources, including in-memory data, XML files, .NET DataSets, and databases from your VB.NET or C# code. In the next section you get a brief overview of the main LINQ pillars. The remainder of this chapter focuses on the LINQ syntax and on the ADO.NET Entity Framework (EF), a technology that enables you to work with databases without writing a lot of code. The ADO.NET Entity Framework uses LINQ a lot under ...