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198 Microsoft Visual Studio 2010: A Beginner’s Guide
Creating a LINQ Projection with Anonymous Types
You can customize what is returned by the select clause by using what is called an
anonymous type. This customization of return values is called a projection. Anonymous
types facilitate custom projections, allowing you to return the results of a LINQ query
in a form that you specify without needing to declare a new type ahead of time. Here’s
an example of creating a query that declares a new anonymous type for combining the
FirstName and LastName properties of Customer into a variable, FullName, that is created
as a string-type property associated with the object returned into cust in the foreach
statement:
C#:
var customers =
from cust in custList
where cust.FirstName.StartsWith("M")
select new
{
FullName =
cust.FirstName + " " +
cust.LastName
};
foreach (var cust in customers)
{
Console.WriteLine(cust.FullName);
}
VB:
Dim customers =
From cust In custList
Where cust.FirstName.StartsWith("M")
Select New With
{
.FullName =
cust.FirstName & " " &
cust.LastName
}
For Each cust In customers
Console.WriteLine(cust.FullName)
Next
In both the C# and VB select clauses you see a new statement (New With in VB) that
defines the anonymous type. The new anonymous type has a single property, FullName,
that is the combination of FirstName and LastName in Customer, but the new type will