LINQ to SQL: GroupBy() and Max() to get the object with latest date

Question

Consider a SQL Server table that\'s used to store events for auditing.

The need is to get only that latest entry for each CustID. We want to get the entire

Answer 1

Here: this uses max rather than OrderByDesc, so should be more efficient.

var subquery = from c in CustAccesses
            group c by c.CustID into g
            select new
            {
                CustID = g.Key,
                AccessDate = g.Max(a => a.AccessDate)
            };
var query = from c in CustAccesses
            join s in subquery 
              on c.CustID equals s.CustID
            where c.AccessDate == s.AccessDate
             && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(c.AccessReason)
            select c;

Answer 2

Using LINQ syntax, which I think looks cleaner:

var custsLastAccess = from c in db.CustAccesses 
                      group c by c.CustID into grp
                      select grp.OrderByDescending(c => c.AccessDate).FirstOrDefault();

Answer 3

I'm wondering if something like:

var custsLastAccess = db.CustAccesses   
                    .Where(c.AccessReason.Length>0)
                    .GroupBy(c => c.CustID)
                    .Select(grp => new {
                      grp.Key,
                      LastAccess = grp
                         .OrderByDescending(x => x.AccessDate)
                         .Select(x => x.AccessDate)
                         .FirstOrDefault()
                    }).ToList();

you could also try OrderBy() and Last()