Pro C# 2010 and the .NET 4 Platform, Fifth Edition

13.2. Understanding the Role of LINQ

That wraps up our quick review of the C# language features that allow LINQ to work its magic. However, why have LINQ in the first place? Well, as software developers, it is hard to deny that the vast majority of our programming time is spent obtaining and manipulating data. When speaking of "data," it is very easy to immediately envision information contained within relational databases. However, another popular location in which data exists is within XML documents (*.config files, locally persisted DataSets, or in-memory data returned from WCF services).

Data can be found in numerous places beyond these two common homes for information. For instance, say you have an array or generic List<T> type containing ...