Perform LINQ join on nullable and non-nullable types


When working with Nullable types, join statement in LINQ need to be handled carefully. When you perform a join over nullable and non-nullable types,
compile time exception is thrown saying that "Type inference failed in the call to join". For example consider following classes.

public class Employee
{
   public int EmployeeId
   {
      get;
      set;
   }
        
   public string EmployeeName
   {
      get;
      set;
   }
}


public class Employee
{
   public int EmployeeId
   {
      get;
      set;
   }
        
   public string EmployeeName
   {
      get;
      set;
   }
}

To fetch data from these let's write code as;

class Test
   {
       static void Main()
       {
           var employees = new List<Employee>
           {
               new Employee
               {
                   EmployeeId = 1,
                   EmployeeName = "E1",
               },
               new Employee
               {
                   EmployeeId = 2,
                   EmployeeName = "E2",
               },
               new Employee
               {
                   EmployeeId = 3,
                   EmployeeName = "E3",
               },
           };

           var departments = new List<Department>
           {
               new Department
               {
                   EmployeeId = 2,
                   EmployeeName = "E2",
               },
               new Department
               {
                   EmployeeId = null,
                   EmployeeName = "D1",
               },
               new Department
               {
                   EmployeeId = 3,
                   EmployeeName = "E3",
               },
           };

           var r =
               from dept in departments
               where dept.EmployeeId != null
               join emp in employees
               on new { SourceEmployeeID = dept.EmployeeId.Value, SourceEmployeeName = dept.EmployeeName }
               equals new { SourceEmployeeID = emp.EmployeeId, SourceEmployeeName = emp.EmployeeName }
               select new
               {
                   emp,
                   dept,
               };

           foreach (var item in r)
           {
               Console.WriteLine("{0}", item.emp.EmployeeId);
           }
       }
   }
}

The query highlighted in above code will match the LHS with EmployeeID which is nullable with RHS EmployeeID which is not nullable.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks so very much. I needed to join nullable and non-nullable types.just like this. You have rescued me after a whole afternoon of trouble... Chris J.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks so very much. I needed to join nullable and non-nullable types.just like this. You have rescued me after a whole afternoon of trouble... Chris J.

    ReplyDelete

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