Basic - SQL Query to LINQ Query - sql

Question

I have been trying out some LINQ query can someone please show how to convert the following SQL query to LINQ:
SELECT *, firstname+' '+lastname AS FullName FROM Client WHERE age > 25;
Don't worry about the where part (put it in for completeness) more wandering how to achieve that first part.
Now I have come across something like this:
from c in dc.Clients select new {FullName = c.firstname + " "+c.lastname}
But i don't know how to get it to select everything else without specifying it ie:
{firstname = c.firstname, id = c.id ..... etc}
But I was hoping for another way of achieving that.
So I'm just wandering if someone could show me the right or another way of accomplishing this :)
Thanks All :)

Answer 1

You have to select the actual item then refer to its properties. There's no way to expand the individual columns into the anonymous type.
var query = from c in dc.Clients
where c.Age > 25
select new
{
Client = c,
FullName = c.firstname + " " + c.lastname
};
foreach (var item in query)
{
// item.Client.Id
// item.FullName
// item.Client.FirstName
}
Selecting the actual item gives you access to the same properties you were using to construct the anonymous type. It's not a complete waste though if the query had more going on, such as a join with another table and including fields from that result in the anonymous type, along with the entire Client object.

Answer 2

You can can't autogenerate every column with Linq2Sql or EF (you can however find a way to mimic this behavior with micro-orms like Dapper and massive).
More conveniently, you can just select a new anonymous type with 3 fields, firstname, lastname and a client like:
from c in dc.Clients
select new
{
FullName = c.firstname + " "+c.lastname,
Client = c
}
I would however recommend to select just those properties that you really need. This forces you to think about how to compose your query and what the query is intended to do (and hence, select). Alternatively, you can just select the client, and use some extension methods to select full names. like:
public static string GetFullName(this Client client){ return client.firstname + " " + client.lastname; }