Generate string from Grouping Linq Query

Question

Hi, Given the following code:

var people = new List<person>(){ new person { Name = "John", FamilyName = "Pendray" },
             new person { FamilyName = "Emery", Name = "Jake"},
             new person { FamilyName = "Pendray", Name = "Richard" } };

var q = from p in people
                 orderby p.Name
                 group p by p.FamilyName into fam
                 orderby fam.Key
                 select new { fam.Key, members = from p in fam select p };

Is it possible to replace the last line with a select that will output a IEnumerable<string> that contains these two strings: "Pendray John Richard" "Emery Jake"? Is it possible to project a linq query into strings like this?

Edit: I know this is possible with further code but I'm interested in whether this can be done from within the linq query itself in a similar way to VB being able to project xml out of a query as in http://www.thinqlinq.com/default/Projecting-XML-from-LINQ-to-SQL.aspx (particularly the last code block on this page)

Answer 1

Definitely.

You would have to change the select part. The easiest way would be to define a function that would take the IEnumerable and generate that string, then call that function

people = new List<person>(){ new person { Name = "John", FamilyName = "Pendray" },
         new person { FamilyName = "Emery", Name = "Jake"},
         new person { FamilyName = "Pendray", Name = "Richard" } };

var q = from p in people
        orderby p.Name
        group p by p.FamilyName into fam
        orderby fam.Key
        select new { Key = fam.Key, Text = GetText(fam) };



// and elsewhere...
private string GetText(IEnumerable<person> family) {
    string result = "Whatever"; // build the result string here
    return result;
}

Also, if you only want the text, you can change the last line of the query to simply

        select GetText(fam);

Answer 2

var q = from p in people
        orderby p.Name
        group p by p.FamilyName into fam
        orderby fam.Key
        select fam.Key + " " + string.Join(" ", (from fm in fam select fm.Name).ToArray());

Returns

Emery Jake
Pendray John Richard