Question

Say there are 5 records from the query, how do I get the top 1 records? This is my current code.

public Application GetByUserIdAndVersion(int userId, string version)
{
    VettingDataContext dc = new VettingDataContext(_connString);
    return (from a in dc.Applications
            where a.UserId == userId && a.chr_Version == version
            select a).SingleOrDefault<Application>();
}

Answer 1

Just use FirstOrDefault() instead:

return (from a in dc.Applications
        where a.UserId == userId && a.chr_Version == version
        select a).FirstOrDefault<Application>();

SingleOrDefault() will throw an exception if there is more than one record, FirstOrDefault() will just take the first one.

Also you shouldn’t have to cast to Application – your record already is of type Application.