Paging with LINQ for objects

Question

How would you implement paging in a LINQ query? Actually for the time being, I would be satisfied if the sql TOP function could be imitated. However, I am sure that the need for full paging support comes up sooner later anyway.

var queryResult = from o in objects
                  where ...
                  select new
                      {
                         A = o.a,
                         B = o.b
                      }
                   ????????? TOP 10????????

Answer 1

You're looking for the Skip and Take extension methods. Skip moves past the first N elements in the result, returning the remainder; Take returns the first N elements in the result, dropping any remaining elements.

See MSDN for more information on how to use these methods: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb386988.aspx

Assuming you are already taking into account that the pageNumber should start at 0 (decrease per 1 as suggested in the comments) You could do it like this:

int numberOfObjectsPerPage = 10;
var queryResultPage = queryResult
  .Skip(numberOfObjectsPerPage * pageNumber)
  .Take(numberOfObjectsPerPage);

Otherwise as suggested by @Alvin

int numberOfObjectsPerPage = 10;
var queryResultPage = queryResult
  .Skip(numberOfObjectsPerPage * (pageNumber - 1))
  .Take(numberOfObjectsPerPage);