How to: Aggregate Data

An aggregation operation computes a single value from a collection of values. An example of an aggregation operation is calculating the average daily temperature from a month's worth of daily temperature values. This topic shows how to group orders by contact ID and get the average total due for each contact ID.

The same example is shown using LINQ to Entities and Entity SQL:

• LINQ to Entities

• Entity SQL with ObjectQuery<T>

The example in this topic is based on the Adventure Works Sales Model. To run the code in this topic, you must have already added the Adventure Works Sales Model to your project and configured your project to use the Entity Framework. For more information, see How to: Use the Entity Data Model Wizard (Entity Framework) or How to: Manually Configure an Entity Framework Project and How to: Manually Define an Entity Data Model (Entity Framework).

Example

The following is the LINQ to Entities example.

Using context As New AdventureWorksEntities
    Dim orders As ObjectSet(Of SalesOrderHeader) = context.SalesOrderHeaders

    Dim query = _
        From ord In orders _
        Let contID = ord.Contact.ContactID _
        Group ord By contID Into g = Group _
        Select New With _
        { _
            .Category = contID, _
            .averageTotalDue = _
                g.Average(Function(ord) ord.TotalDue) _
         }

    For Each ord In query
        Console.WriteLine("ContactID = {0} " & vbTab & _
            " Average TotalDue = {1}", _
            ord.Category, ord.averageTotalDue)
    Next
End Using

using (AdventureWorksEntities context = new AdventureWorksEntities())
{
    ObjectSet<SalesOrderHeader> orders = context.SalesOrderHeaders;

    var query =
        from order in orders
        group order by order.Contact.ContactID into g
        select new
        {
            Category = g.Key,
            averageTotalDue = g.Average(order => order.TotalDue)
        };

    foreach (var order in query)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("ContactID = {0} \t Average TotalDue = {1}",
            order.Category, order.averageTotalDue);
    }
}

The following is the Entity SQL example.

Using context As New AdventureWorksEntities()
    Dim esqlQuery As String = "SELECT contactID, AVG(order.TotalDue) FROM AdventureWorksEntities.SalesOrderHeaders " & _
        " AS order GROUP BY order.Contact.ContactID as contactID"

    For Each rec As DbDataRecord In New ObjectQuery(Of DbDataRecord)(esqlQuery, context)
        Console.WriteLine("ContactID = {0} Average TotalDue = {1} ", rec(0), rec(1))
    Next
End Using

using (AdventureWorksEntities context =
    new AdventureWorksEntities())
{
    string esqlQuery = @"SELECT contactID, AVG(order.TotalDue) 
                            FROM AdventureWorksEntities.SalesOrderHeaders 
                            AS order GROUP BY order.Contact.ContactID as contactID";

    foreach (DbDataRecord rec in
        new ObjectQuery<DbDataRecord>(esqlQuery, context))
    {
        Console.WriteLine("ContactID = {0}  Average TotalDue = {1} ",
            rec[0], rec[1]);
    }
}

See Also

Tasks

How to: Group Data