LINQ to SQL - Left Outer Join with multiple join conditions

dan picture dan · Jul 14, 2009 · Viewed 148.1k times · Source

I have the following SQL, which I am trying to translate to LINQ:

SELECT f.value
FROM period as p 
LEFT OUTER JOIN facts AS f ON p.id = f.periodid AND f.otherid = 17
WHERE p.companyid = 100

I have seen the typical implementation of the left outer join (ie. into x from y in x.DefaultIfEmpty() etc.) but am unsure how to introduce the other join condition (AND f.otherid = 17)

EDIT

Why is the AND f.otherid = 17 condition part of the JOIN instead of in the WHERE clause? Because f may not exist for some rows and I still want these rows to be included. If the condition is applied in the WHERE clause, after the JOIN - then I don't get the behaviour I want.

Unfortunately this:

from p in context.Periods
join f in context.Facts on p.id equals f.periodid into fg
from fgi in fg.DefaultIfEmpty()
where p.companyid == 100 && fgi.otherid == 17
select f.value

seems to be equivalent to this:

SELECT f.value
FROM period as p 
LEFT OUTER JOIN facts AS f ON p.id = f.periodid 
WHERE p.companyid = 100 AND f.otherid = 17

which is not quite what I'm after.

Answer

dahlbyk picture dahlbyk · Jul 14, 2009

You need to introduce your join condition before calling DefaultIfEmpty(). I would just use extension method syntax:

from p in context.Periods
join f in context.Facts on p.id equals f.periodid into fg
from fgi in fg.Where(f => f.otherid == 17).DefaultIfEmpty()
where p.companyid == 100
select f.value

Or you could use a subquery:

from p in context.Periods
join f in context.Facts on p.id equals f.periodid into fg
from fgi in (from f in fg
             where f.otherid == 17
             select f).DefaultIfEmpty()
where p.companyid == 100
select f.value