When you started using LINQ, did you think it looked like SQL? I did.

The more I learned LINQ, the more I realized it wasn’t anything like SQL. Take grouping, for example. Because LINQ has a group by statement, and it looks like SQL, I assumed that the syntax for grouping in LINQ would be just like SQL. Ha ha! Wrong! As soon as I tried to use it, I discovered that the LINQ syntax is not only nothing like the SQL equivalent, but the whole grouping concept in LINQ is completely different too.

At first glance, the two syntaxes look slightly similar.

SQL:

select ReportsTo, count(LastName) as NameCount
from Employees
group by ReportsTo

LINQ (C#):

from employee in Employees
group employee by employee.ReportsTo

Ignoring the omission of the select statement from LINQ, and the requirement of a range variable, they do look similar. But looks can be deceiving.

Let me explain why.

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