####Short info Installation: Nuget FnX.TypedCsv + add FnX namespace.

Usage: YadaYada.Where(yadayada).OrderBy(yodayoda).Select(p=>new {foo=p.x, bar=p.y, bax=p.z}).ToTypedCsv(@"c:\my linqpad queries\some project\yadayada.linq")

Status: Works on my machine(s).

The problem it solves: dump any result from a linq query to a csv-file and automatically generate type (class) and code to be able to get the data back strongly typed.

When do I use it myself: when a customer asks me to extract and combine complex data from sql and I need to test and explore to get the correct output. With this I only need to bother the database once, and yet get the strong types to get a nice linqpad experience.

Alternative: tsql queries + perhaps temporary tables.

How much time did I spend creating it: few hours.

How much code: < 100 LOCS.

Tools: LinqPad (or VS).

Dependencies: CsvHelper.

####More info

Useful when you want to dump a snapshot of data, to be able to process it further later with type information kept, for a nice linq experience. That way you don't need to fetch the data from your database more than necessary. Reading the csv-file snapshot is very fast (using the Nuget CsvHelper).

For example (in LinqPad, with AdventureWorks data):

VEmployee.Take (100).ToTypedCsv()

Result:

c:\users\jonas\documents\VEmployee.csv
c:\users\jonas\documents\VEmployee.linq

The first file is the csv with the data. And the other one is a linq-file with a class generated from the query result IEnumerable + a function to read the csv file.

Simply copy the filename and open it in linqpad - then process it further with more linq.

The generated class (reflection)

public class VEmployee {
    public Int32 BusinessEntityID {get;set;}
    public String Title {get;set;}
    public String FirstName {get;set;}
    ...

The generated sample code to read the csv and get the IEnumerable

void Main() {

    var vemployeeEnumerable=GetVEmployeeRecords(@"c:\users\jonas\documents\VEmployee.csv");
    
    vemployeeEnumerable.Dump();	        
    
}


public IEnumerable<VEmployee> GetVEmployeeRecords(string filePath){
    using (var reader = File.OpenText(filePath)) {
        var csvReader = new CsvHelper.CsvReader(File.OpenText(filePath));
        return csvReader.GetRecords<VEmployee>();
    }
    }	

####Options

You can specify the path (csv gets same path, but .csv extension):

VEmployee.Take (100).ToTypedCsv(@"c:\data\mydata.linq") 

It works with anonymous types aswell (they also get translated to regular types, with the inferred property types)

You can also run it in Visual Studio (or anywhere) and generate cs-file instead of a linq:

VEmployee.Take (100).ToTypedCsv(@"c:\data\mydata.cs") 

####Known limitations Does only work with flat (csv) data (no complex types).