Question

For example, if I had a Linq to SQL data context, or if I had ADO.NET Entity Framework entities that mapped to a database table, and I want to test for a single Customer…

Is there much difference between:

MyDatabaseContext.Customers.Any(c => c.CustomerId == 3)

and

MyDatabaseContext.Customers.Where(c => c.CustomerId == 3)

.Any<> – return type bool

.Where<> – return type IQueryable

EDIT: Corrected question wording after accepting answer from Fredrik Mörk – thanks.

Answer 1

Check the documentation again:

• Any<> returns a bool indicating whether at least one item meets the criteria
• Where<> returns an IEnumerable containing the items that meet the criteria

There may be a performance difference in that Any stops as soon as it can determine the result (when it finds a matching item), while Where will need to always loop over all items before returning the result. So if you only need to check whether there are any matching items, Any will be the method for the job.