Visual Basic® 2012 Unleashed, Second Edition

Chapter 25. LINQ to DataSets

In This Chapter

• Querying Datasets with LINQ

• LINQ to DataSets’ Extension Methods

For many years datasets have been the main data access technology for .NET developers, including Visual Basic programmers. Although the most recent versions of the .NET Framework introduced new object relational mapping technologies such as LINQ to SQL and ADO.NET Entity Framework, datasets are still very diffused especially in older applications. Because of this, Microsoft produced a LINQ standard provider that is specific for querying datasets: LINQ to DataSets. In this chapter you do not find information on manipulating datasets (refer to Chapter 21, “Introducing ADO.NET and DataSets”); instead you learn to query existing datasets ...