Condensing linq expressions into one expression for a simple blog system

Question

I currently have many linq expressions nested within foreach loops ... kind of defeating the point of using linq!

What I'm trying to achieve is a simple blog model (blog posts which have multiple tags and are associated with multiple categories... that's all).

I'm looking for a way to condense all my linq expressions into a single expression, and the way I'm attempting to do it at the moment isn't returning desired results. Here's a basic representation of what I'm trying at the moment:

var blogs = 
    from blog in db.BlogPosts
    join categories in db.BlogCategories
        on blog.Fk_Category_Id equals category.Id
    // Using a junction table because blogs can have multiple tags,
    // and tags can be shared across different blogs.
    join juncTags in db.Junc_BlogTags
        on blog.Id equals juncTags.Fk_BlogPost_Id
    join tags in db.Tags
        on juncTags.FK_Tag_Id equals tags.Id
    select new
    {
        blog,
        categories,
        tags
    };

foreach(var blog in blogs)
{
    blog.blog // Correct, can obtain information of current blog...
    blog.categories // Correct, shows the information of Blog's category
    blog.tags // Wrong, only refers to the first tag - next itteration will 
    // show the same blog with the next tag .. not what I want.
}

I'm sure that its something simple that I'm missing here, but can't figure it out and thought that Stack Overflow would be able to answer this easily.

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

I think this will do the trick:

var blogs = 
    from blog in db.BlogPosts
    select new
    {
        Blog = blog,
        Categories = blog.BlogCategories.ToArray(),
        Tags = blog.Junc_BlogTags.Select(bt => bt.Tag).ToArray()
    };

No more ugly joining. I hardly ever have to write a single join statement in LINQ.

Answer 2

It's not clear exactly what you'd prefer to get instead of what you're currently getting, but how about this?

var blogs = from blog in db.BlogPosts
            join categories in db.BlogCategories
                on blog.Fk_Category_Id equals category.Id
            select new
            {
                blog,
                categories,
                tags = from juncTags in db.Junc_BlogTags
                       join tags in db.Tags
                           on juncTags.FK_Tag_Id equals tags.Id
                       where juncTags.Fk_BlogPost_Id = blog.Id
                       select tags
            };