Orcas January CTP – Lack of LINQ Templates?

For those of you who have used the Orcas January CTP you may have noticed a lack of Linq templates.  According to the forums (http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1100902&SiteID=1) this was intentional and Linq is still included and useable.

Steps to creating a Linq project using the CTP are as follows:

1. Create a new project
2. Linq assemblies are then required to be referenced, they can be found here : C:WINDOWSMicrosoft.NETFrameworkv3.5.11209
   The important ones are System.Core.dll, System.Data.Entity.dll, System.Data.Linq.dll and System.Xml.Linq.dll
   The core is for the standard linq queries, where Data.Linq and Xml.Linq are what the old DLinq and XLinq were.
3. Depending on what your planning on doing, add the required references.
4. The using statements are as follows for the various parts of Linq
   using System.Linq;
   using System.Data.DLinq; //Haven’t migrated it yet, guessing this is what will be done in February CTP and why this CTP doesn’t include much Linq to SQL
   using System.Xml.Linq;
5. Sample code to check it all works (Linq to Objects)

   int[] numbers = { 5, 4, 1, 3, 9, 8, 6, 7, 2, 0 };

   var lowNums =
   from n in numbers
   where n < 5
   select n;

   Console.WriteLine(“Numbers < 5:");
   foreach (var x in lowNums)
   {
   Console.WriteLine(x);
   }

   Console.ReadLine();

That is how to setup Linq for a project.  I will discuss Linq to SQL in another post and how you can use it with your database.

Now, back onto my degree.