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How do you perform a CROSS JOIN with LINQ to SQL?

People also ask

Is there cross join in SQL?

In SQL, the CROSS JOIN is used to combine each row of the first table with each row of the second table. It is also known as the Cartesian join since it returns the Cartesian product of the sets of rows from the joined tables.

What you can do with LINQ to SQL?

LINQ to SQL supports all the key capabilities you would expect as a SQL developer. You can query for information, and insert, update, and delete information from tables.


A cross-join is simply the Cartesian product of two sets. There's no explicit join operator for it.

var combo = from p in people
            from c in cars
            select new
            {
                p.Name,
                c.Make,
                c.Model,
                c.Colour
            };

The same thing with the Linq extension method SelectMany (lambda syntax):

var names = new string[] { "Ana", "Raz", "John" };
var numbers = new int[] { 1, 2, 3 };
var newList=names.SelectMany(
    x => numbers,
    (y, z) => { return y + z + " test "; });
foreach (var item in newList)
{
    Console.WriteLine(item);
}

Based on Steve's answer, the simplest expression would be this:

var combo = from Person in people
            from Car    in cars
            select new {Person, Car};

A Tuple is a good type for Cartesian product:

public static IEnumerable<Tuple<T1, T2>> CrossJoin<T1, T2>(IEnumerable<T1> sequence1, IEnumerable<T2> sequence2)
{
    return sequence1.SelectMany(t1 => sequence2.Select(t2 => Tuple.Create(t1, t2)));
}

Extension Method:

public static IEnumerable<Tuple<T1, T2>> CrossJoin<T1, T2>(this IEnumerable<T1> sequence1, IEnumerable<T2> sequence2)
{
    return sequence1.SelectMany(t1 => sequence2.Select(t2 => Tuple.Create(t1, t2)));
}

And use like:

vals1.CrossJoin(vals2)