Guide to LINQ and VB.NET

LINQ - An Example Driven Introduction
LINQ - Language Integrated Query - is the reason a whole host of new technolgies were introduced in VB.NET 2008. For example, Lamda expressions and partial methods. This article is the first in a series intended to introduce LINQ to VB.NET programmers.

LINQ to Objects
LINQ to Objects was misnamed by Microsoft. It should really be LINQ to Collections, but somebody probably decided that didn't have the right marketing feel to it. Another way to think of it is "LINQ without using an API or Provider.". Other members of the LINQ family (LINQ to SQL, LINQ to Entities) always involve a library object to access a...

LINQ Queries - Deferred Queries
LINQ - Language Integrated Query - is the reason a whole host of new technolgies were introduced in VB.NET 2008. For example, Lamda expressions and partial methods. Another technology that was introduced with LINQ is the LINQ query ... a faster and more direct way to write LINQ query expressions. Most LINQ queries are deferred . This article...

LINQ and Queries
LINQ - Language Integrated Query - is the reason a whole host of new technolgies were introduced in VB.NET 2008. For example, Lamda expressions and partial methods. Another technology that was introduced with LINQ is the LINQ query ... a faster and more direct way to write LINQ query expressions. This article explains it.

AutoTest - A LINQ to XML Example Program
Microsoft's LINQ technology combined with XML can revolutionize the way you program, but it's difficult to make the transition from more traditional ways of programming to LINQ. Moving to XML can be a challenge too. A reader asked for help programming a system to generate random test questions. Since it seemed like an ideal way to showcase LINQ, I wrote most of the code as a programming example.

LINQ to SQL in VB.NET
One way to classify the innovations introduced with LINQ - Language INtegrated Query - is by all of the datastores supported by Microsoft. One of the first datastores people want to use is SQL where the datastore is a SQL Server database. This article shows how to get started using database code that is a compiled part of your VB.NET program.

LINQ to XML
Microsoft's LINQ technology combined with XML can revolutionize the way you program, but it's difficult to make the transition from more traditional ways of programming XML such as the W3C DOM to LINQ. Just moving to XML can be a challenge. This article shows how to get started.

LINQ to DataSet
Microsoft's LINQ (Language Integrated Query) technology is designed to work with any data store, but LINQ to SQL (introduced in a different Visual Basic About.com article) only works with SQL Server. To make LINQ work with the rest, LINQ to DataSet works with the rest. This article explains how to make that work.

LINQ to Entities
Working with databases inside application code has always been a problem, mainly because there are lots of different databases (with different interface requirements) and because the data in databases just doesn't match the way data is represented in application code. One of the ways of dealing with this problem is to create a new way to...

Do you use the SQL or traditional dot notation to code LINQ?
The SQL query nototation and the dot notation are equivalent ways to express a LINQ query. Which one do you use?

Option Infer
Option Infer is a compile option that was introduced specifically for LINQ with Framework 3.5/VB.NET 2008. It's just a little more complicated than the other compile options. (Option Strict, Option Explicit and Option Compare). This article explains what it's all about.

Anonymous Types
"Anonymous Types" is the name used for a technology that was introduced to make LINQ - Language Integrated Query - work. This article explains how they work and enable LINQ for VB.NET programmers.

Expression Trees
Expression Trees are possibly the most advanced language extension that was introduced with LINQ. They make the VB.NET compiler emit Expressions; something other than IL (Intermediate Language) code. This article introduces them.