Question

I have a SQL table that stores photos with a smallint SortOrder field. Users can insert new photos, specifying a decimal sort order to place the new record between 2 existing photos (or before the first photo). The SortOrder will be stored as a smallint, so when I detect that an insertion will shift existing records, I need to update all affected photos to increment the SortOrder by 1.

This is easy to do in a stored procedure, but I’m looking for the most efficient way to accomplish this with Linq to SQL. If I have to pull all of the records down to the client, update them, and then submit them, then I will just stick with the stored procedure that is already working and very fast.

Here’s the T-SQL that shifts the records:

    UPDATE      Photo
    SET         SortOrder = SortOrder + 1
    WHERE       AlbumId = @AlbumId
    AND         SortOrder >= CEILING(@SortOrder)

Is there a way to do this kind of bulk update in Linq to SQL without having to fetch the records?

Answer 1

LINQ to SQL doesn’t do CUD statements for sets, so stick with your existing implementation as it would be the best in your scenario.