There is a new pane in the Data Builder for VistaDB 4.1.  The LINQ query pane is a very handy way to build and test LINQ queries against a simple Entity Framework model.  First understand that this pane is a work in progress.  It was designed to be an easy way to write LINQ queries (similar to LINQPad) for your VistaDB database.  The feature is of limited usefulness since the model cannot be customized at generation, or loaded from your own assembly.  But this is where we were with the feature when we had to ship, so here it is.  We have been using it a lot to help write LINQ queries, we hope you find it useful too.

The current implementation only supports C# (sorry VB guys, it was on the list).  You can right click on the Entity Model tree and Script the main query window with all your basic CRUD operations.

By default the dialog is grayed out until you generate a model.  The code shown will still be present once the model is generated.

More...

Have you tried to use LINQ to query a database using Visual Studio?  It can be a frustrating experience of things that compile fail at runtime, and that edit / compile / test cycle can quickly lead to hours of lost time trying to get a single complex query to work correctly.

LINQPad is an editor for LINQ?

LINQPad is sort of like a Notepad, you can write and edit .linq files using it.  But that is where the Notepad similarity stops. You can execute your LINQ queries and see the results without having to run your application.  It is truly something you have to watch in order to believe how much more productive it can make your writing of LINQ.

How I found LINQPad

When I was first working on the VistaDB product store and account manager writing LINQ queries against my Entity Framework objects was incredibly frustrating.  Most of the documentation and samples I found was for Linq2Sql, which is similar syntax… But not the same. And worse, most of the syntax compiles fine, but blows up at runtime with cryptic error messages.

My typical dev and test cycle was around 5 minutes to compile the DAL / Site, login to the account, navigate to the correct page, and visit the yellow screen of death from asp.net.  It was not fun, so I started working in a stand alone tester app I built just for this purpose.  Write the query, compile, debug, step, step, read exception and try to decipher it.

I was reading a post on Stack Overflow about one of those cryptic errors when someone suggested to the poster they use LINQPad to test their queries first before putting them into their apps.  Wow, what a great idea!  Where was this tool?  (You can download it for free from Linqpad.net )

LINQPad to the rescue

LINQPad allows you to execute single LINQ commands against an existing EF model, or even to write dot net code in the editor and execute it like a little dynamic dot net environment.  The main application is free, but there is an auto-complete feature to the editor that you must pay in order to activate. Believe me it is worth it to pay for the license, you also support the author and show him the application is worth money.  The license is very inexpensive and well worth the price in order to get intellisense like behavior on your LINQ queries.

More...