Programming Microsoft® Visual C#® 2008: The Language

LINQ to SQL

LINQ to SQL is used to access relational databases. A goal of LINQ to SQL is to offer a unified query expression language for relational databases regardless of the data source. You learn a single syntax that can be applied to a variety of native databases. The query expression is converted by the provider into a query string targeting a specific database, and the query string is submitted to the relevant database engine. You can retrieve the SQL-specific query string generated for a query expression with the DataContext.GetCommand method. To submit a SQL command directly to the database engine, use DataContext.ExecuteQuery. LINQ to SQL queries are not immediate and use deferred loading. This is accomplished via expression trees, which ...