Linq To SQL: Distinct with First or Default

Question

I have a table of Departments that is related to an Employees table. What I want is a list that contains one Employee for every Department. It doesn't matter which employee, so TOP 1, is fine. But each Department should only be represented by one employee in the list.

EMPLOYEES >----------DEPARTMENT
Id                   Id
LastName             DepartmentName
DepartmentId

How do I write that LINQ query? I'm missing something here, becuase I didn't think this would be hard to figure out.

Answer 1

I'd use GroupBy and First. No need for any special joins on the Department table at all.

Context.Employees.GroupBy(x => x.DepartmentId).Select(x => x.First());