Question

I grab the SQL that will be issued by a LINQ to SQL command and store it in a string in my C# code. I do not want to have it sent to console out, not do I want to analyze it separately in SQL Studio or LinqPad. I want to have that string so that my program can do what it wants with the string. (In reality, I will send it to log4net, but that’s incidental).

Does anyone know how to get this? I know that the SQL is not actually issued to the database until you start walking through the iterators, but I am hoping that perhaps there is a way to get the SQL beforehand.

Answer 1

If you are using the Entity Framework you can use the ToTraceString() method on an ObjectQuery like this:

ObjectQuery<Product> productQuery =
  from p in context.Products
  select p;

string sql = productQuery.ToTraceString();

If you are using Linq to Sql, you’re DataContext has a Log property that you can use to get the Sql output.

    StringBuilder logBuilder = new StringBuilder();
    db.Log = new StringWriter(logBuilder);
    var custQuery =
        (from cust in db.Customers
        where cust.City == "London"
        select cust).ToList();

   string sql = logBuilder.ToString();