Problem with converting int to string in Linq to entities

Question

With EF v4 you can use SqlFunctions.StringConvert. There is no overload for int so you need to cast to a double or a decimal. Your code ends up looking like this:

var items = from c in contacts
            select new ListItem
            {
                Value = SqlFunctions.StringConvert((double)c.ContactId).Trim(),
                Text = c.Name
            };

I solved a similar problem by placing the conversion of the integer to string out of the query. This can be achieved by putting the query into an object.

var items = from c in contacts
            select new 
            {
                Value = c.ContactId,
                Text = c.Name
            };
var itemList = new SelectList();
foreach (var item in items)
{
    itemList.Add(new SelectListItem{ Value = item.ContactId, Text = item.Name });
}

Use LinqToObject : contacts.AsEnumerable()

var items = from c in contacts.AsEnumerable()
            select new ListItem
            {
                Value = c.ContactId.ToString(),
                Text = c.Name
            };

SqlFunctions.StringConvert will work, but I find it cumbersome, and most of the time, I don't have a real need to perform the string conversion on the SQL side.

What I do if I want to do string manipulations is perform the query in linq-to-entities first, then manipulate the stings in linq-to-objects. In this example, I want to obtain a set of data containing a Contact's fullname, and ContactLocationKey, which is the string concatination of two Integer columns (ContactID and LocationID).

// perform the linq-to-entities query, query execution is triggered by ToArray()
var data =
   (from c in Context.Contacts
   select new {
       c.ContactID,
       c.FullName,
       c.LocationID
   }).ToArray();

// at this point, the database has been called and we are working in
// linq-to-objects where ToString() is supported
// Key2 is an extra example that wouldn't work in linq-to-entities
var data2 =
   (from c in data
    select new {
       c.FullName,
       ContactLocationKey = c.ContactID.ToString() + "." + c.LocationID.ToString(),
       Key2 = string.Join(".", c.ContactID.ToString(), c.LocationID.ToString())
    }).ToArray();

Now, I grant that it does get cumbersome to have to write two anonymous selects, but I would argue that is outweighed by the convenience of which you can perform string (and other) functions not supported in L2E. Also keep in mind that there is probably a performance penalty using this method.

public static IEnumerable<SelectListItem> GetCustomerList()
        {
            using (SiteDataContext db = new SiteDataContext())
            {
                var list = from l in db.Customers.AsEnumerable()
                           orderby l.CompanyName
                           select new SelectListItem { Value = l.CustomerID.ToString(), Text = l.CompanyName };

                return list.ToList();
            }
        }

var selectList = db.NewsClasses.ToList<NewsClass>().Select(a => new SelectListItem({
    Text = a.ClassName,
    Value = a.ClassId.ToString()
});

Firstly, convert to object, then toString() will be correct.