ASP.NET: Linq2SQL: selecting all names matching an id - asp.net

Question

Got 2 tables: db.Tags (ID, TagName) and db.Names (ID, Name, TagID).
I want to fetch all db.Tags rows, and all the Names matching the TagID.
So it will look like
ID - TagName - Names
1 - tag1 - name1, name2, name3
2 - tag2 - name4, name5, name6
Is this possible in one (long) linq query?
or do I have to get all the tags, then do foreach tag, get all the names, then do foreach names to put them in a one long string..
Thanks in advance!
EDIT:
Okay see my comment on the second answer (first one up..), this is what i tried but i get some errors in compiler:
var tags =
from t in db.Tags
orderby t.Priority ascending
select new {
t.ID,
t.Name,
t.Priority,
Places = String.Join(", ",
(from p in db.Places
join o in db.TagToPlaces on new {
p.ID,
t.ID
}
equals new {
o.PlaceId,
o.TagId
}
select p.Name
).ToArray()
)
}
);

Answer 1

I think this is what you're after:
var query =
from t in db.Tags
select new
{
t.ID,
t.TagName,
Names = String.Join(", ",
(from n in db.Names
where n.TagID == t.ID
select n.Name)
.ToArray()),
};
With this I get the same sort of output that you gave in your question. I also understood that you want to output the tag id and name even when there are no associated name records - my query does that.
Now depending on if you're using EF or LINQ-to-SQL or something else you may need to add .ToArray() to the db.Tags & db.Names references to force the database query to occur.
If you have a large number of tag records you'll find you have a large number of queries going to the database. You could make this change to reduce it to only two queries:
var tags = db.Tags.ToArray();
var names = db.Names.ToArray();
var query =
from t in tags
select new
{
t.ID,
t.TagName,
Names = String.Join(", ",
(from n in names
where n.TagID == t.ID
select n.Name)
.ToArray()),
};
Now you just need to make sure that your data fits into memory - but it sounds like it should. I hope this helps.

Answer 2

Since the concat is a pain in TSQL, I would query the 3 values "as is", and format from there:
var list = (from tag in db.Tags
join name in db.Names
on tag.ID equals name.TagId
orderby tag.ID
select new { tag.ID, tag.TagName, name.Name }).ToList();
for example, if I wanted the names by tag-id, I could do:
var namesByTag = list.ToLookup(row => row.ID, row => row.Name);
(or whatever else you choose)