Monday, June 27, 2011

Linq: Creating new objects from selects and joins

I like Linq more every time I use is. I've posted about XLinq and using linq to sort and filter lists. You can also use Linq to join two objects and select properties from each to create a new collection of objects (somewhat like SQL), run ForEach clauses, and do simple functions like Distinct, Sum, and Count.
Here's a code sample (I prefer to do minimalist samples with a unit test syntax for easy demos):

using System;
using System.Text;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UnitTesting;

namespace LinqDemo
{
      /// <summary>
      /// Summary description for UnitTest1
      /// </summary>
      [TestClass]
      public class UnitTest1
      {
            private Employee[] GetEmployees()
            {
                  return new Employee[]
                  {
                    new Employee(){ FirstName = "Homer", LastName ="Simpson", FavoriteNumber=7, DeptId=1},
                    new Employee(){ FirstName = "Marge", LastName ="Simpson", FavoriteNumber=18, DeptId=0},
                    new Employee(){ FirstName = "Bart", LastName ="Simpson", FavoriteNumber=99, DeptId=0},
                    new Employee(){ FirstName = "Monty", LastName ="Burns", FavoriteNumber=23, DeptId=9},
                    new Employee(){ FirstName = "Ned", LastName ="Flanders", FavoriteNumber=5, DeptId=0}
                  };
            }

            private Department[] GetDepartments()
            {
                  return new Department[]
                  {
                        new Department(){ DeptId=1, DeptName="Safety Operator"},
                        new Department(){ DeptId=2, DeptName="Customer Service"},
                        new Department(){ DeptId=9, DeptName="Executive"},
                  };
            }



            [TestMethod]
            public void SelectProperties()
            {
                  //create data
                  Employee[] emps = GetEmployees();

                  //Use linq to get a distinct list from some property
                  List<string> lastNames = emps
                        .Where(n => n.FavoriteNumber > 10) //Some filter
                        .OrderBy(n => n.LastName)
                        .Select(n => n.LastName) //Select specific fields
                        .Distinct() //Get only distict elements
                        .ToList();

                  Assert.AreEqual("Burns", lastNames[0]);
                  Assert.AreEqual("Simpson", lastNames[1]);
            }

            [TestMethod]
            public void JoinAndCreateAnotherObject()
            {
                  //Join "Employee" and Department to create "Worker"
                  Employee[] emps = GetEmployees();
                  Department[] depts = GetDepartments();

                  //This could be useful is emps and depts came from
                  //    different sources, or depts was cached
                  Worker[] workers =
                        (
                              from emp in emps
                              from dept in depts
                              where emp.DeptId == dept.DeptId
                                    && emp.DeptId > 0
                              select new Worker()
                              {
                                    FirstName = emp.FirstName,
                                    DeptName = dept.DeptName
                              }
                        ).ToArray();

                  Assert.AreEqual("Homer", workers[0].FirstName);
                  Assert.AreEqual("Safety Operator", workers[0].DeptName);
            }

            [TestMethod]
            public void ForEach()
            {
                  //Use a single line to update a property
                  List<Employee> emps = GetEmployees().ToList();
                  Assert.AreEqual(7, emps[0].FavoriteNumber);

                  //Double everyone's favorte number
                  //Easier than writing a for-each loop
                  emps.ForEach(n => n.FavoriteNumber = n.FavoriteNumber * 2);

                  Assert.AreEqual(14, emps[0].FavoriteNumber);
            }

            [TestMethod]
            public void Do_Aggregates()
            {
                  //Get the sum of all numbers where the number is already > 10.
                  List<Employee> emps = GetEmployees().ToList();
                  int intSum = emps
                        .Where(n => n.FavoriteNumber > 10)
                        .Sum(n => n.FavoriteNumber);
                  Assert.AreEqual(140, intSum);
            }


      }

      public class Employee
      {
            public int FavoriteNumber { get; set; }
            public int DeptId { get; set; }
            public string FirstName { get; set; }
            public string LastName { get; set; }

            public override string ToString()
            {
                  return string.Format("{0} {1} - {2}", this.FirstName, this.LastName, this.FavoriteNumber);
            }
      }

      public class Department
      {
            public int DeptId { get; set; }
            public string DeptName { get; set; }
      }

      public class Worker
      {
            public string FirstName { get; set; }
            public string DeptName { get; set; }
      }


}

4 comments:

  1. Nice, simple, clear examples. I too like using tests for demo/experimental type code.

    A couple really minor comments:
    1) ForEach is a method on the List class, it's not part of LINQ.
    2) For the most part, you don't need to call ToList. LINQ methods work on IEnumerable and the array return type on your Get method implements this.
    3) There are First() and Last() methods in LINQ that return the first and last items in an enumeration. These are particularly handy in tests rather than referencing by subscript.
    4) On the SelectProperties example, if the OrderBy call is moved after the Distinct call, on a long enumeration you'd have better performance since the sorting would be on a reduced list.
    5) In the JoinAndCreateAnotherObject example, you can also use LINQ methods rather than the from-where-select keyword syntax:
    var workers2 = emps.Where(e => e.DeptId > 0).Join(depts, e => e.DeptId, d => d.DeptId, (e, d) => new Worker {FirstName = e.FirstName, DeptName = d.DeptName});

    Cheers.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Very good points, thanks for adding.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Cool! I got what I was lookin for. Thanks a lot!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for sharing an informative stuff. Keep rocking bring more articles.
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    ReplyDelete