How to select a single column with Entity Framework?

Question

Is there a way to get the entire contents of a single column using Entity Framework 4? The same like this SQL Query:

SELECT Name FROM MyTable WHERE UserId = 1; 

Answer 1

You can use LINQ's .Select() to do that. In your case it would go something like:

string Name = yourDbContext   .MyTable   .Where(u => u.UserId == 1)   .Select(u => u.Name)   .SingleOrDefault(); // This is what actually executes the request and return a response 

If you are expecting more than one entry in response, you can use .ToList() instead, to execute the request. Something like this, to get the Name of everyone with age 30:

string[] Names = yourDbContext   .MyTable   .Where(u => u.Age == 30)   .Select(u => u.Name)   .ToList();