Switch from 'Entity Framework Linq' to 'Linq to Objects' with AsEnumerable

Most people know what when writing a Linq query with Entity Framework that until that query is enumerated it won't call out to the database. Sometimes it's necessary to do some more work with the results such as use a method as part of the projection.

var result =
    from people in Context.People
    where people.DateOfBirth < twentyYearsAgo
    select people;

function GetAge(DateTime dateOfBirth) { ...

This is where AsEnumerable comes in. This generic function allows you to switch from the IQueryable source to IEnumerable which will use Linq to Objects. Using AsEnumerable instead of ToList allows us to still delay the execution of the query until it's needed.

var query =
    from people in Context.People
    where people.DateOfBirth < twentyYearsAgo
    select people;

var result =
    from people in query.AsEnumerable()
    select GetAge(people.DateOfBirth);

You could do the same thing by casting to the IEnumerable type but for anonymous objects you'll find you need to use AsEnumerable anyway to infer the type from the query.

Switch from 'Entity Framework Linq' to 'Linq to Objects' with AsEnumerable

Top Tags