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DefaultIfEmpty() + select new MyStronglyTypeObj()

my aim is to return result via left join by linq. The io.IsDefault can be null but insted of this I want to return MyStronglyTypeObj obj with the rest data.
context.Image.Where(i => i.IsActive == true) have 3 rows. one of those have isDefault null because this ImageId- (io => io.ImageId == i.ImageId) dosent exist in ImageObject
var test2 = (from i in context.Image.Where(i => i.IsActive == true)
from io in ImageObject.Where(io => io.ImageId == i.ImageId).DefaultIfEmpty()
select new MyStronglyTypeObj() { Alt = i.Alt, Caption = i.Caption, DisplayName = i.DisplayName, Extension = i.Extension, IsDefault = io.IsDefault, Height = i.Height, Width = i.Width, Name = i.Name });
// return 2 imgs - the 3rd one without isDefault (isDefault = null) wasn't added to collection.
var test = (from i in context.Image.Where(i => i.IsActive == true)
from io in ImageObject.Where(io => io.ImageId == i.ImageId).DefaultIfEmpty()
select i); // return 3 imgs
Is something obvious to me that I don't see? - perhaps I totally misunderstood the .DefaultIfEmpty() function
please help

DefaultIfEmpty() only affects empty collections, and causes that collection to return a single element with value default(T) (where T == collection type).
For example, using strings (note default(string) == null):
So based on the code you provided:
DefaultIfEmpty() is not a factor
The only other difference is the select statement, which doesn't really make sense
I'm guessing i is type MyStronglyTypeObj (based on properties matching)? I suspect there's another factor when you're running this code that you're not taking into account.
Try putting a breakpoint on that line, and viewing the results in the debugger.
Also, because LINQ uses deferred execution, this query code doesn't actually "run" until it gets consumed, and depending on when that happens, the source data can change (essentially, easily causing timing bugs if you're changing the source data somewhere else). Even more frustrating, this can cause this bug to disappear when you use a debugger and view the results in that, as it causes the code to execute sooner. You can avoid this by adding a .ToList() at the end of the line to cause the results to be executed immediately.

how to take 100 records from linq query based on a condition

I have a query, which will give the result set . based on a condition I want to take the 100 records. that means . I have a variable x, if the value of x is 100 then I have to do .take(100) else I need to get the complete records.
var abc=(from st in Context.STopics
where st.IsActive==true && st.StudentID == 123
select new result()
{
name = st.name }).ToList().Take(100);

Because LINQ returns an IQueryable which has deferred execution, you can create your query, then restrict it to the first 100 records if your condition is true and then get the results. That way, if your condition is false, you will get all results.
var abc = (from st in Context.STopics
where st.IsActive && st.StudentID == 123
select new result
{
name = st.name
});
if (x == 100)
abc = abc.Take(100);
abc = abc.ToList();
Note that it is important to do the Take before the ToList, otherwise, it would retrieve all the records, and then only keep the first 100 - it is much more efficient to get only the records you need, especially if it is a query on a database table that could contain hundreds of thousands of rows.

One of the most important concept in SQL TOP command is order by. You should not use TOP without order by because it may return different results at different situations.
The same concept is applicable to linq too.
var results = Context.STopics.Where(st => st.IsActive && st.StudentID == 123)
.Select(st => new result(){name = st.name})
.OrderBy(r => r.name)
.Take(100).ToList();
Take and Skip operations are well defined only against ordered sets. More info

Although the other users are correct in giving you the results you want...
This is NOT how you should be using Entity Framework.
This is the better way to use EF.
var query = from student in Context.Students
where student.Id == 123
from topic in student.Topics
order by topic.Name
select topic;
Notice how the structure more closely follows the logic of the business requirements.
You can almost read the code in English.

Sum of child of child in LINQ

I need help in LINQ query in EF6.
the master table is called EXAM. its child is ExamResult.
each ExamResult has a Question and the selected Answer.
each Answer has power (0 if wrong, 1 if correct).
if I want to know the total of correct answers, I simply run the command:
var examTotal = db.Exams.FirstOrDefault(ex => ex.ExamID == examId).ExamResults.Sum(er => er.Answer.Power);
my problem is when some questions were not answered, and I get NullReferenceException.

There are a couple problems with your "command".
First off, there are at least two queries:
(1) var exam = db.Exams.FirstOrDefault(ex => ex.ExamID == examId);
(2) var examTotal = exam.ExamResults.Sum(er => er.Answer.Power);
Note that the second really executes inside the LINQ to Objects context (eventually including some hidden db calls due to lazy loading).
In that context, there are 2 possible places that can raise NRE
(A) exam.ExamResults if exam is null
(B) er.Answer.Powerif er.Answer is null
You can fix them by including null checks as proposed in other answers.
But better way would be make your command execute a single query inside the LINQ to Entities context where navigation properties have different meaning:
var examTotal = db.Exams.Where(ex => ex.ExamID == examId)
.SelectMany(ex => ex.ExamResults)
.Sum(er => (int?)er.Answer.Power) ?? 0;
The only trick needed is to project the field you want to sum to a nullable type (I've used int? assuming the Power field is of int type, change it to your type if different). This is letting the EF to always return the Sum regardless of whether er.Answer is null or ex.ExamResults is empty.

Some general nullchecks should do the trick
var exam = db.Exams.FirstOrDefault(ex => ex.ExamID == examId);
var examTotal = exam.ExamResults.Sum(er => er.Answer?.Power ?? 0);
...and just in case you're not using C# 6, here's Another version of it:
var exam = db.Exams.FirstOrDefault(ex => ex.ExamID == examId);
var examTotal = exam.ExamResults.Sum(er => er.Answer != null ? er.Answer.Power : 0);

Try this:
var examTotal = db.Exams.FirstOrDefault(ex => ex.ExamID == examId).ExamResults.Where(er => er.Answer != null).Sum(er => er.Answer.Power);

This should work:
var examTotal = db.Exams.FirstOrDefault(ex => ex.ExamID == examId).ExamResults.Count(er => er.Answer.Power == 1);
This will not use the value but instead see if it is equal to 1, thus not generate any NullReferenceException.

To apply mulitple criteria in lambda expression in c#

I have two main tables Listings and Place . In listing table there is a field PlaceId which referes to a Place entity/row/object . I want to query on both tables so that i get both of them like this .
var query = context.Listings
.Include("Place")
.Where(l => l.Place.TypeId == Type.Ro)
.OrderBy(l => l.Id).ToList();
after this now i want to put some filter on this query , here is the condition .
i got only a string like this var filter = "1,2,4"; . Now i want to filter on listing to gett all these listing where bedroom is equal to 1 OR 2 OR 4 .
What i have done
string minBeds = "1,2,4";
foreach (var item in minBeds.Split(','))
{
int minBed = int.Parse(item);
query = query.Where(l=>l.Place.Bedroom == minBed).ToList();
}
But doing this is giving me Zero result.

The problem with the way you're filtering it. After the first pass, you're filtering out everything except where Bedroom == 1, on the second pass you're filtering out everything except where Bedroom == 2, but since the only items in the list have Bedroom == 1, you won't have anything in the result set.
The solution is to use the conventional C# || operator:
query = query.Where(l => l.Place.Bedroom == "1" ||
l.Place.Bedroom == "2" ||
l.Place.Bedroom == "4");
Or if you want to be more flexible, use the Contains method:
string[] minBeds = "1,2,4".Split(',');
query = query.Where(l => minBeds.Contains(l.Place.Bedroom));
Note if Bedroom is an integer, you'll need to convert the input to an appropriate type first:
var minBeds = "1,2,4".Split(',').Select(int.Parse);
query = query.Where(l => minBeds.Contains(l.Place.Bedroom));
Also note, I've eliminated the ToList here. Unless you need to access items by index and add / remove items from the result collection, it's most likely just a waste of resources. You can usually rely on Linq's native laziness to delay processing to query until you really need the result.

Possible to do this in linq?

I am wondering if something like this could be done(of course what I have written does not work but that's what I am essentially trying to achieve) .
var test = u.Owner;
a.Table.Where(u => test == true)
I have a linq query that I want to reuse(basically I got a query that I use 5 times) and the only thing that changes is what I am comparing against.
So in the above u.Owner is compared against true. In another query it would look the same but instead of u.Owner I might have u.Add == true or u.Edd == true.
So is there a way I can sort of reuse what I have. Of course in my code the query is a bit longer but I just shortened down.
Edit
Basically the whole query
List<Permission> clearence = user.PermissionLevels.Where(u => u.Id == Id &&( u.Add == permissionNeeded || u.Permission.Name == PermissionTypes.Owner)).ToList();
permissionNeeded == Enum
So my orignal way of doing it was u.Permission.Name == permissionNeeded so I compared the enum value to a string.
Now my db model has change and I need to check against 5 different permissions separately that are bools and not strings.
u.Add = true || u.Owner == true;
u.Edit = true || u.Owner == true;
u.Delete= true || u.Owner == true;
u.View= true || u.Owner == true;
Thats all changes for the entire query so that's why I am trying to make it into one query(just like I had it before).
So I am thinking of having a switch statement. The method still takes in a permissionNeeded(enum) I then go through and determine what clause I need and some how insert it into the query.
switch(PermssionNeeded)
{
case PermissionTypes.Add:
u.Add;
break;
// all other cases here.
}

Take advantage of the fact that Where can have any function taking type Table as a parameter and returning a boolean to create a function like:
public IQueryable<Table> QueryTables(Func<Table, bool> testFunction)
{
return a.Table.Where(testFunction).AsQueryable<Table>();
}
Edit: (in addition to edit to add AsQueryable above, which I earlier forgot)
If all you want to do is vary the boolean field used in the test, and you don't want to have to specify an entire function (which you're about to find out is much easier), you would need to use some reflection:
using System.Reflection;
public IQueryable<Table> QueryTables(PropertyInfo pi)
{
return a.Table.Where(t => (bool)(pi.GetGetMethod().Invoke(t, null))).AsQueryable<Table>();
}
To construct the PropertyInfo object, use something like:
PropertyInfo pi = typeof(Table).GetProperty("Owner");
I prefer the earlier method, but I did want to show that something like this is at least possible.

If you only want to specify the property you are checking you can do
public IEnumerable<Table> GetTables(Func<Table,bool> getValue)
{
return a.Table.Where(table => /*some common filter*/)
.Where(table => getValue(table))
}

var query = from u in uSrc join v in vSrc on u.ID equals v.RelatedUID
where v.Valid && u.Created < DateTime.UtcNow.AddDays(-365)
select u; // relatively complicated starting point.
var q1 = query.Where(u => u.Add); // must also have Add true
var q2 = query.Where(u => u.Test); // must also have Test true
var q3 = query.Where(u => u.ID < 50); // must also have ID < 50
And so on.
Edit:
Okay, so your starting query is:
List<Permission> clearence = student.PermissionLevels.Where(u => u.Id == Id &&( u.Add == permissionNeeded || u.Permission.Name == PermissionTypes.Owner)).ToList();
However, note that this creates a list, so any further work done on it will be a matter of Linq-to-objects. We'll come back to that in a minute, as it's sometimes good and sometimes not.
Now, if I understand you correctly, you need different sets for different cases, which you can do with your query as per:
var set0 = clearance.Where(u.Add = true || u.Owner == true);
var set1 = clearance.Where(u.Edit = true || u.Owner == true);
var set2 = clearance.Where(u.Delete= true || u.Owner == true);
var set3 = clearance.Where(u.View= true || u.Owner == true);
Now, this will work, but may not be the best approach. If we go back to the original query, we don't have to do ToList(), but can have:
IQueryable<Permission> clearence = student.PermissionLevels.Where(u => u.Id == Id &&( u.Add == permissionNeeded || u.Permission.Name == PermissionTypes.Owner));
Now, in the first case because we built a list we first got all values that matched the critera backed, and then stored it in memory, in clearance.
In the second case, clearance doesn't store any values at all, but instructions on how to get them.
The question is which is better to use. In the case where we are going to end up using the vast majority of the objects returned by the first query on its own, then there is a performance boost in using the list version, because they are loaded into memory only once, and then taken from memory without hitting the database again.
However, in most cases, it's better to do the second version for two reasons:
We hit the database in each case, but only retrieve the objects needed in that case.
We don't store anything in memory longer than necessary. Above a certain amount this is an important performance matter in itself.
The time to first item is faster this way.
We can further refine, for example if we do the following:
var trimmed = from set0 select new{u.Id, u.Permission.Name};
The we retrieve anonymous objects with Id and Name properties that are all we care about for a particular case, and not all of the relevant fields are retrieved from the database, or other source.

I've recently come to prefer a Dictionary over switch statements. You could store all your lambas in a Dictionary<PermissionNeeded, Func<User, bool>> that would look like this:
Dictionary<PermissionNeeded, Func<User, bool>> Permissions =
new Dictionary<PermissionNeeded, Func<User, bool>> {
{ PermissionNeeded.Add, u => u.Add }, // don't need to specify == true
{ PermissionNeeded.Edit, u => u.Edit },
...
etc
};
And you would call it like this:
var clearance = Permissions[PermissionNeeded.Add](user);
or maybe
var clearance = Permissions[PermissionNeeded.Add](user) && Permissions[PermissionNeeded.Edit](user);
or perhaps
var clearance = Permission[PermissionNeeded.Add](user) || Permissions[PermissionNeeded.View](user);
and so on. Even if you don't have a user object, I think this would still be valid and make the code pretty easy to read, and if you have to modify your functions, its all in the dictionary...