What is LINQ why it Required for dotnet developers?

LINQ stands for Language Integrated Query. 

 LINQ enables us to query any type of data  i.e.SQL Server, XML documents, Objects in memory etc.


 If the .NET application that is being developed

a) Requires data from SQL Server - Then the developer has to understand ADO.NET code and SQL specific to SQL Server Database

b) Requires data from an XML document - Then the developer has to understand XSLT & XPATH queries


c) Need to query objects in memory (List<Customer>, List<Order> etc) - Then the developer has to understand how to work with objects in memory


LINQ enables us to work with these different data sources using a similar coding style without having the need to know the syntax specific to the data source. In our upcoming videos we will discuss querying different data sources using LINQ.
Another benefit of using LINQ is that it provides intellisense and compile time error checking. 

1. LINQ query can be written using any .NET supported programming language

2. LINQ provider is a component between the LINQ query and the actual data source, which converts the LINQ query into a format that the underlying data source can understand. For example LINQ to SQL provider converts a LINQ query to T-SQL that SQL Server database can understand. 

Please see the below LINQ archicture