Great book so far...

Re the two code snippets below

I know it might just be a question of preference, but I find the second one much more readable.
Could you also just describe how the lambda values (item, type) are interpreted and resolved?


var types =
array
.Select(item => item.GetType().Name)
.OrderBy(type => type);


as opposed to (my expression syntax version)

var types = from type in array
orderby (type.GetType().Name)
select (type.GetType().Name);

Hi Matthew,

Yes, in this case it's a matter of taste. You can use whatever syntax you prefer.

Two remarks though:

1) You can write the query expression with less parentheses:
[pre]
var types =
from type in array
orderby type.GetType().Name
select type.GetType().Name;[/pre]
2) The above query expression is not the exact translation of the chained query operators version. Here is the correct translation:
[pre]
var types =
from item in array
let name = itemGetType().Name
orderby name
select name;[/pre]
The difference is that in the latter query, type.GetType().Name gets executed only once per element. With the query expression you suggest, type.GetType().Name gets executed twice per element!

See, it's not that easy to convert queries from one syntax to another. Moreover, the query expression is now longer than the original query.

In other cases, you don't have the choice because not everything can be written as a query expression.See Chapter 3 for more information, especially section 3.4.4.

Fabrice

Thanks for your response.

I take your points re the semantics of the two techniques.

Can you shed a little light on the second half of the question

How does one interpret :

.OrderBy (type=> type)

I'm having a little trouble understanding it...

thanks again.

The call to Select selects the name of each item's type -> String, Int32, Boolean, Char
The call to OrderBy simply sorts this list of type names -> Boolean, Char, Int32, String