Question

I see articles on using SPMetal to generate the .cs file that allows LINQ to work properly. The file I’m talking about inherits from the Microsoft.SharePoint.Linq.DataContext class. How can I use LINQ without recompiling on my production environment, since I would need to regenerate this file using SPMetal on my production environment? I suspect the answer is going to be “can’t do it”.

I guess I’ll use a CAML query instead unless there is some easier way to use LINQ that I am missing.

Answer 1

If the objective is just to query lists using LINQ and you want to avoid such recompilations, do not use SPMetal.
LINQ can be directly used on SPListItemCollection
e.g.

 var FindCustomer = from SPListItem Item in Customers.Items
                       where Item["Orders"] as int == 5
                        select Item;

//or select new{Title = Item[“Title”]}

This does not have hard coded entities but is more flexible. And as long as your list column names remain same, code can be deployed on any environment even if other lists are changing.
Also you can choose to retrieve few chosen field’s data instead of retrieving data of all the fields every time.