I'm having trouble coming up with an efficient LINQ-to-SQL query. I am attempting to do something like this:
from x in Items
select new
{
Name = x.Name
TypeARelated = from r in x.Related
where r.Type == "A"
select r
}
As you might expect, it produces a single query from the "Items" table, with a left join on the "Related" table. Now if I add another few similar lines...
from x in Items
select new
{
Name = x.Name
TypeARelated = from r in x.Related
where r.Type == "A"
select r,
TypeBRelated = from r in x.Related
where r.Type == "B"
select r
}
The result is that a similar query to the first attempt is run, followed by an individual query to the "Related" table for each record in "Items". Is there a way to wrap this all up in a single query? What would be the cause of this? Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.
The above query if written directly in SQL would be written like so (pseudo-code):
SELECT
X.NAME AS NAME,
(CASE R.TYPE WHEN A THEN R ELSE NULL) AS TypeARelated,
(CASE R.TYPE WHEN B THEN R ELSE NULL) AS TypeBRelated
FROM Items AS X
JOIN Related AS R ON <some field>
However, linq-to-sql is not as efficient, from your explanation, it does one join, then goes to individually compare each record. A better way would be to use two linq queries similar to your first example, which would generate two SQL queries. Then use the result of the two linq queries and join them, which would not generate any SQL statement. This method would limit the number of queries executed in SQL to 2.
If the number of conditions i.e. r.Type == "A" etc., are going to increase over time, or different conditions are going to be added, you're better off using a stored procedure, which would be one SQL query at all times.
Hasanain
You can use eager loading to do a single join on the server to see if that helps. Give this a try.
using (MyDataContext context = new MyDataContext())
{
DataLoadOptions options = new DataLoadOptions();
options.LoadWith<Item>(i => i.Related);
context.LoadOptions = options;
// Do your query now.
}
Related
Suppose I have a list of {City, State}. It originally came from the database, and I have LocationID, but by now I loaded it into memory. Suppose I also have a table of fast food restaurants that has City and State as part of the record. I need to get a list of establishments that match city and state.
NOTE: I try to describe a simplified scenario; my business domain is completely different.
I came up with the following LINQ solution:
var establishments = from r in restaurants
from l in locations
where l.LocationId == id &&
l.City == r.City &&
l.State == r.State
select r
and I feel there must be something better. For starters, I already have City/State in memory - so to go back to the database only to have a join seems very inefficient. I am looking for some way to say {r.City, r.State} match Any(MyList) where MyList is my collection of City/State.
UPDATE
I tried to update based on suggestion below:
List<CityState> myCityStates = ...;
var establishments =
from r in restaurants
join l in myCityStates
on new { r.City, r.State } equals new { l.City, l.State } into gls
select r;
and I got the following compile error:
Error CS1941 The type of one of the expressions in the join clause is incorrect. Type inference failed in the call to 'Join'.
UPDATE 2
Compiler didn't like anonymous class in the join. I made it explicit and it stopped complaining. I'll see if it actually works in the morning...
It seems to me that you need this:
var establishments =
from r in restaurants
join l in locations.Where(x => x.LocationId == id)
on new { r.City, r.State } equals new { l.City, l.State } into gls
select r;
Well, there isn't a lot more that you can do, as long as you rely on a table lookup, the only thing you can do to speed up things is to put an index on City and State.
The linq statement has to translate into a valid SQL Statement, where "Any" would translate to something like :
SELECT * FROM Restaurants where City in ('...all cities')
I dont know if other ORM's give better performance for these types of scenarios that EF, but it might be worth investigating. EF has never had a rumor for being fast on reads.
Edit: You can also do this:
List<string> names = new List { "John", "Max", "Pete" };
bool has = customers.Any(cus => names.Contains(cus.FirstName));
this will produce the necessary IN('value1', 'value2' ...) functionality that you were looking for
What I have is a string of comma separated IDs that I'm receiving from a query string (e.g. 23,51,6,87,29). Alternately, that string could just say "all".
In my Linq query I need a way to say (in pseudo code):
from l in List<>
where l.Id = all_of_the_ids_in_csv
&& other conditions
select new {...}
I'm just not sure how to go about doing that. I'm not even sure what to google to get me going in the right direction. Any pointing in the right direction would be extremely helpful.
I would suggest to split your query in 2 - first part will select by ID, and the select one will select other conditions.
First of all: check if query string contains numbers, or is just all:
var IEnumerable<ListItemType> query = sourceList;
if(queryStringValue != "All")
{
var ids = queryStringValue.Split(new[] { ',' })
.Select(x => int.Parse(x)) // remove that line id item.Id is a string
.ToArray();
query = query.Where(item => ids.Contains(item.Id));
}
from l in query
// other conditions
select new {...}
Because LINQ queries have deffered execution you can build queries like that without performance drawback. Query won't be executed until you ask for results (by ToList call or enumeration).
If you really want it with just one LINQ query:
var idArray = all_of_the_ids_in_csv.Split(',');
from l in List<>
where (all_of_the_ids_in_csv == "All" || idArray.Contains(l.Id))
&& other conditions
select new {...}
The trick is using string.Split
var ids = string.split(rawIdString, ",").ToList();
var objects = ids.Where(id=> /*filter id here */).Select(id=>new { /* id will be the single id from the csv */ });
// at this point objects will be an IEnumerable<T> where T is whatever type you created in the new statement above
I'm concerned that this LINQ call actually makes two trips to the database (once for Contains, once for ToList), when all I really want is the SQL-equivalent of a nested select statement:
var query1 = from y in e.cities where y.zip=12345 select y.Id;
var query2 = from x in e.users where query1.Contains(x.cityId) select x;
List<users> result = query2.ToList();
The point: If this is making a trip to the database twice, how do I avoid that? How can I have a nested select statement like this that will just execute as one query one time? Query1 will only ever return 1 or 0 rows. There must be a better way than using "Contains".
Since query1 and query2 are both IQueryable there is only one trip to the database - when you call query2.ToList()
You could combine the queries using a join since you are looking for related information and the relationship is that the user's city id is the same as the city you are restricting to:
var result = (from x in e.users
join y in e.cities
on x.cityId equals y.Id
where y.zip == 12345
select x.Id).ToList();
Above should give you a list of user ids of users that (presumably) live in the zip code 12345.
I have a query which is fully translatable to SQL. For unknown reasons LINQ decides the last Select() to execute in .NET (not in the database), which causes to run a lot of additional SQL queries (per each item) against database.
Actually, I found a 'strange' way to force the full translation to SQL:
I have a query (this is a really simplified version, which still does not work as expected):
MainCategories.Select(e => new
{
PlacementId = e.CatalogPlacementId,
Translation = Translations.Select(t => new
{
Name = t.Name,
// ...
}).FirstOrDefault()
})
It will generates a lot of SQL queries:
SELECT [t0].[CatalogPlacementId] AS [PlacementId]
FROM [dbo].[MainCategories] AS [t0]
SELECT TOP (1) [t0].[Name]
FROM [dbo].[Translations] AS [t0]
SELECT TOP (1) [t0].[Name]
FROM [dbo].[Translations] AS [t0]
...
However, if I append another Select() which just copies all members:
.Select(e => new
{
PlacementId = e.PlacementId,
Translation = new
{
Name = e.Translation.Name,
// ...
}
})
It will compile it into a single SQL statement:
SELECT [t0].[CatalogPlacementId] AS [PlacementId], (
SELECT [t2].[Name]
FROM (
SELECT TOP (1) [t1].[Name]
FROM [dbo].[Translations] AS [t1]
) AS [t2]
) AS [Name]
FROM [dbo].[MainCategories] AS [t0]
Any clues why? How to force the LINQ to SQL to generate a single query more generically (without the second copying Select())?
NOTE: I've updated to query to make it really simple.
PS: Only, idea I get is to post-process/transform queries with similar patterns (to add the another Select()).
When you call SingleOrDefault in MyQuery, you are executing the query at that point which is loading the results into the client.
SingleOrDefault returns IEnumerable<T> which is no longer an IQueryable<T>. You have coerced it at this point which will do all further processing on the client - it can no longer perform SQL composition.
Not entirely sure what is going on, but I find the way you wrote this query pretty 'strange'. I would write it like this, and suspect this will work:
var q = from e in MainCategories
let t = Translations.Where(t => t.Name == "MainCategory"
&& t.RowKey == e.Id
&& t.Language.Code == "en-US").SingleOrDefault()
select new TranslatedEntity<Category>
{
Entity = e,
Translation = new TranslationDef
{
Language = t.Language.Code,
Name = t.Name,
Xml = t.Xml
}
};
I always try to separate the from part (selection of the datasources) from the select part (projection to your target type. I find it also easier to read/understand, and it generally also works better with most linq providers.
You can write the query as follows to get the desired result:
MainCategories.Select(e => new
{
PlacementId = e.CatalogPlacementId,
TranslationName = Translations.FirstOrDefault().Name,
})
As far as i'm aware, it's due to how LINQ projects the query. I think when it see's the nested Select, it will not project that into multiple sub-queries, as essentially that would be what would be needed, as IIRC you cannot use multiple return columns from a sub-query in SQL, so LINQ changes this to a query-per-row. FirstOrDefault with a column accessor seems to be a direct translation to what would happen in SQL and therefore LINQ-SQL knows it can write a sub-query.
The second Select must project the query similar to how I have written it above. It would be hard to confirm without digging into a reflector. Generally, if I need to select many columns, I would use a let statement like below:
from e in MainCategories
let translation = Translations.FirstOrDefault()
select new
{
PlacementId = e.CatalogPlacementId,
Translation = new {
translation.Name,
}
})
I have a table, lets call it Record. Containing:
ID (int) | CustID (int) | Time (datetime) | Data (varchar)
I need the latest (most recent) record for each customer:
SQL
select * from record as i group by i.custid having max(id);
LINQ version 1
dgvLatestDistinctRec.DataSource = from g in ee.Records
group g by g.CustID into grp
select grp.LastOrDefault();
This throws an error:
System.NotSupportedException was unhandled by user code Message=LINQ
to Entities does not recognize the method 'Faizan_Kazi_Utils.Record
LastOrDefault[Record
](System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable`1[Faizan_Kazi_Utils.Record
])' method, and this method cannot be translated into a store
expression. Source=System.Data.Entity
LINQ version 2
var list = (from g in ee.Records
group g by g.CustID into grp
select grp).ToList();
Record[] list2 = (from grp in list
select grp.LastOrDefault()).ToArray();
dgvLatestDistinctRec.DataSource = list2;
This works, but is inefficient because it loads ALL records from the database into memory and then extracts just the last (most recent member) of each group.
Is there any LINQ solution that approaches the efficiency and readability of the mentioned SQL solution?
Update:
var results = (from rec in Record group rec by rec.CustID into grp
select new
{
CustID = grp.Key,
ID = grp.OrderByDescending(r => r.ID).Select(x => x.ID).FirstOrDefault(),
Data = grp.OrderByDescending(r => r.ID).Select(x => x.Data).FirstOrDefault()
}
);
So I made a test table and wrote a Linq -> SQL Query that will do exactly what you need. Take a look at this and let me know what you think. Only thing to keep in mind if this query is scaled I believe it will run a query to the DB for each and every CustID record after the grouping in the select new. The only way to be sure would be to run SQL Tracer when you run the query for info on that go here .. http://www.foliotek.com/devblog/tuning-sql-server-for-programmers/
Original:
Could you do something like this? from g in ee.Records where g.CustID == (from x in ee.Records where (g.CustID == x.CustID) && (g.ID == x.Max(ID)).Select(r => r.CustID))
That's all pseudo code but hopefully you get the idea.
I'm probably too late to help with your problem, but I had a similar issue and was able to get the desired results with a query like this:
from g in ee.Records
group g by g.CustID into grp
from last in (from custRec in grp where custRec.Id == grp.Max(cr => cr.Id) select custRec)
select last
What if you replace LastOrDefault() with simple Last()?
(Yes, you will have to check your records table isn't empty)
Because I can't see a way how MySQL can return you "Default" group. This is not the thing that can be simply translated to SQL.
I think grp.LastOrDefault(), a C# function, is something that SQL doesn't know about. LINQ turns your query into an SQL query for your db server to understand. You might want to try and create an stored procedure instead, or another way to filter out what your looking for.
The reason your second query works is because the LINQ to SQL returns a list and then you do a LINQ query (to filter out what you need) on a C# list, which implements the IEnumerable/IQueryable interfaces and understands the grp.LastOrDefault().
I had another idea:
// Get a list of all the id's i need by:
// grouping by CustID, and then selecting Max ID from each group.
var distinctLatest = (from x in ee.Records
group x by x.CustID into grp
select grp.Max(g => g.id)).ToArray();
// List<Record> result = new List<Record>();
//now we can retrieve individual records using the ID's retrieved above
// foreach (int i in distinctLatest)
// {
// var res = from g in ee.Records where g.id == i select g;
// var arr = res.ToArray();
// result.Add(res.First());
// }
// alternate version of foreach
dgvLatestDistinctRec.DataSource = from g in ee.Records
join i in distinctLatest
on g.id equals i
select g;