Paging with LINQ for objects

How would you implement paging in a LINQ query? Actually for the time being, I would be satisfied if the sql TOP function could be imitated. However, I am sure that the need for full paging support comes up sooner later anyway.

var queryResult = from o in objects
                  where ...
                  select new
                      {
                         A = o.a,
                         B = o.b
                      }
                   ????????? TOP 10????????

You're looking for the Skip and Take extension methods. Skip moves past the first N elements in the result, returning the remainder; Take returns the first N elements in the result, dropping any remaining elements.

See MSDN for more information on how to use these methods: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb386988.aspx

Assuming you are already taking into account that the pageNumber should start at 0 (decrease per 1 as suggested in the comments) You could do it like this:

int numberOfObjectsPerPage = 10;
var queryResultPage = queryResult
  .Skip(numberOfObjectsPerPage * pageNumber)
  .Take(numberOfObjectsPerPage);

Otherwise if pageNumber is 1-based (as suggested by @Alvin)

int numberOfObjectsPerPage = 10;
var queryResultPage = queryResult
  .Skip(numberOfObjectsPerPage * (pageNumber - 1))
  .Take(numberOfObjectsPerPage);

Using Skip and Take is definitely the way to go. If I were implementing this, I would probably write my own extension method to handle paging (to make the code more readable). The implementation can of course use Skip and Take:

static class PagingUtils {
  public static IEnumerable<T> Page<T>(this IEnumerable<T> en, int pageSize, int page) {
    return en.Skip(page * pageSize).Take(pageSize);
  }
  public static IQueryable<T> Page<T>(this IQueryable<T> en, int pageSize, int page) {
    return en.Skip(page * pageSize).Take(pageSize);
  }
}

The class defines two extension methods - one for IEnumerable and one for IQueryable, which means that you can use it with both LINQ to Objects and LINQ to SQL (when writing database query, the compiler will pick the IQueryable version).

Depending on your paging requirements, you could also add some additional behavior (for example to handle negative pageSize or page value). Here is an example how you would use this extension method in your query:

var q = (from p in products
         where p.Show == true
         select new { p.Name }).Page(10, pageIndex);

Here is my performant approach to paging when using LINQ to objects:

public static IEnumerable<IEnumerable<T>> Page<T>(this IEnumerable<T> source, int pageSize)
{
    Contract.Requires(source != null);
    Contract.Requires(pageSize > 0);
    Contract.Ensures(Contract.Result<IEnumerable<IEnumerable<T>>>() != null);
    
    using (var enumerator = source.GetEnumerator())
    {
        while (enumerator.MoveNext())
        {
            var currentPage = new List<T>(pageSize)
            {
                enumerator.Current
            };
            
            while (currentPage.Count < pageSize && enumerator.MoveNext())
            {
                currentPage.Add(enumerator.Current);
            }
            yield return new ReadOnlyCollection<T>(currentPage);
        }
    }
}

This can then be used like so:

var items = Enumerable.Range(0, 12);

foreach(var page in items.Page(3))
{
    // Do something with each page
    foreach(var item in page)
    {
        // Do something with the item in the current page		
    }
}

None of this rubbish Skip and Take which will be highly inefficient if you are interested in multiple pages.

   ( for o in objects
    where ...
    select new
   {
     A=o.a,
     B=o.b
   })
.Skip((page-1)*pageSize)
.Take(pageSize)

Don't know if this will help anyone, but I found it useful for my purposes:

private static IEnumerable<T> PagedIterator<T>(IEnumerable<T> objectList, int PageSize)
{
    var page = 0;
    var recordCount = objectList.Count();
    var pageCount = (int)((recordCount + PageSize)/PageSize);

    if (recordCount < 1)
    {
        yield break;
    }
        
    while (page < pageCount)
    {
        var pageData = objectList.Skip(PageSize*page).Take(PageSize).ToList();

        foreach (var rd in pageData)
        {
            yield return rd;
        }
        page++;
    }
}

To use this you would have some linq query, and pass the result along with the page size into a foreach loop:

var results = from a in dbContext.Authors
              where a.PublishDate > someDate
              orderby a.Publisher
              select a;

foreach(var author in PagedIterator(results, 100))
{
    // Do Stuff
}

So this will iterate over each author fetching 100 authors at a time.

EDIT - Removed Skip(0) as it's not necessary

var queryResult = (from o in objects where ...
                      select new
                      {
                          A = o.a,
                          B = o.b
                      }
                  ).Take(10);

var pages = items.Select((item, index) => new { item, Page = index / batchSize }).GroupBy(g => g.Page);

Batchsize will obviously be an integer. This takes advantage of the fact that integers simply drop decimal places.

I'm half joking with this response, but it will do what you want it to, and because it's deferred, you won't incur a large performance penalty if you do

pages.First(p => p.Key == thePage)

This solution is not for LinqToEntities, I don't even know if it could turn this into a good query.

Similar to Lukazoid's answer I've created an extension for IQueryable.

   public static IEnumerable<IEnumerable<T>> PageIterator<T>(this IQueryable<T> source, int pageSize)
            {
                Contract.Requires(source != null);
                Contract.Requires(pageSize > 0);
                Contract.Ensures(Contract.Result<IEnumerable<IQueryable<T>>>() != null);
    
                using (var enumerator = source.GetEnumerator())
                {
                    while (enumerator.MoveNext())
                    {
                        var currentPage = new List<T>(pageSize)
                        {
                            enumerator.Current
                        };
    
                        while (currentPage.Count < pageSize && enumerator.MoveNext())
                        {
                            currentPage.Add(enumerator.Current);
                        }
                        yield return new ReadOnlyCollection<T>(currentPage);
                    }
                }
            }

It is useful if Skip or Take are not supported.

I use this extension method:

public static IQueryable<T> Page<T, TResult>(this IQueryable<T> obj, int page, int pageSize, System.Linq.Expressions.Expression<Func<T, TResult>> keySelector, bool asc, out int rowsCount)
{
    rowsCount = obj.Count();
    int innerRows = rowsCount - (page * pageSize);
    if (innerRows < 0)
    {
        innerRows = 0;
    }
    if (asc)
        return obj.OrderByDescending(keySelector).Take(innerRows).OrderBy(keySelector).Take(pageSize).AsQueryable();
    else
        return obj.OrderBy(keySelector).Take(innerRows).OrderByDescending(keySelector).Take(pageSize).AsQueryable();
}

public IEnumerable<Data> GetAll(int RowIndex, int PageSize, string SortExpression)
{
    int totalRows;
    int pageIndex = RowIndex / PageSize;

    List<Data> data= new List<Data>();
    IEnumerable<Data> dataPage;

    bool asc = !SortExpression.Contains("DESC");
    switch (SortExpression.Split(' ')[0])
    {
        case "ColumnName":
            dataPage = DataContext.Data.Page(pageIndex, PageSize, p => p.ColumnName, asc, out totalRows);
            break;
        default:
            dataPage = DataContext.vwClientDetails1s.Page(pageIndex, PageSize, p => p.IdColumn, asc, out totalRows);
            break;
    }

    foreach (var d in dataPage)
    {
        clients.Add(d);
    }

    return data;
}
public int CountAll()
{
    return DataContext.Data.Count();
}

    public LightDataTable PagerSelection(int pageNumber, int setsPerPage, Func<LightDataRow, bool> prection = null)
    {
        this.setsPerPage = setsPerPage;
        this.pageNumber = pageNumber > 0 ? pageNumber - 1 : pageNumber;
        if (!ValidatePagerByPageNumber(pageNumber))
            return this;

        var rowList = rows.Cast<LightDataRow>();
        if (prection != null)
            rowList = rows.Where(prection).ToList();

        if (!rowList.Any())
            return new LightDataTable() { TablePrimaryKey = this.tablePrimaryKey };
        //if (rowList.Count() < (pageNumber * setsPerPage))
        //    return new LightDataTable(new LightDataRowCollection(rowList)) { TablePrimaryKey = this.tablePrimaryKey };

        return new LightDataTable(new LightDataRowCollection(rowList.Skip(this.pageNumber * setsPerPage).Take(setsPerPage).ToList())) { TablePrimaryKey = this.tablePrimaryKey };
  }

this is what i did. Normaly you start at 1 but in IList you start with 0. so if you have 152 rows that mean you have 8 paging but in IList you only have 7. hop this can make thing clear for you

var results = (medicineInfo.OrderBy(x=>x.id)
                       .Skip((pages -1) * 2)
                       .Take(2));

There are two main options:

.NET >= 4.0 Dynamic LINQ:

1. Add using System.Linq.Dynamic; at the top.
2. Use: var people = people.AsQueryable().OrderBy("Make ASC, Year DESC").ToList();

You can also get it by NuGet.

.NET < 4.0 Extension Methods:

private static readonly Hashtable accessors = new Hashtable();

private static readonly Hashtable callSites = new Hashtable();

private static CallSite<Func<CallSite, object, object>> GetCallSiteLocked(string name) {
    var callSite = (CallSite<Func<CallSite, object, object>>)callSites[name];
    if(callSite == null)
    {
        callSites[name] = callSite = CallSite<Func<CallSite, object, object>>.Create(
                    Binder.GetMember(CSharpBinderFlags.None, name, typeof(AccessorCache),
                new CSharpArgumentInfo[] { CSharpArgumentInfo.Create(CSharpArgumentInfoFlags.None, null) }));
    }
    return callSite;
}

internal static Func<dynamic,object> GetAccessor(string name)
{
    Func<dynamic, object> accessor = (Func<dynamic, object>)accessors[name];
    if (accessor == null)
    {
        lock (accessors )
        {
            accessor = (Func<dynamic, object>)accessors[name];
            if (accessor == null)
            {
                if(name.IndexOf('.') >= 0) {
                    string[] props = name.Split('.');
                    CallSite<Func<CallSite, object, object>>[] arr = Array.ConvertAll(props, GetCallSiteLocked);
                    accessor = target =>
                    {
                        object val = (object)target;
                        for (int i = 0; i < arr.Length; i++)
                        {
                            var cs = arr[i];
                            val = cs.Target(cs, val);
                        }
                        return val;
                    };
                } else {
                    var callSite = GetCallSiteLocked(name);
                    accessor = target =>
                    {
                        return callSite.Target(callSite, (object)target);
                    };
                }
                accessors[name] = accessor;
            }
        }
    }
    return accessor;
}
public static IOrderedEnumerable<dynamic> OrderBy(this IEnumerable<dynamic> source, string property)
{
    return Enumerable.OrderBy<dynamic, object>(source, AccessorCache.GetAccessor(property), Comparer<object>.Default);
}
public static IOrderedEnumerable<dynamic> OrderByDescending(this IEnumerable<dynamic> source, string property)
{
    return Enumerable.OrderByDescending<dynamic, object>(source, AccessorCache.GetAccessor(property), Comparer<object>.Default);
}
public static IOrderedEnumerable<dynamic> ThenBy(this IOrderedEnumerable<dynamic> source, string property)
{
    return Enumerable.ThenBy<dynamic, object>(source, AccessorCache.GetAccessor(property), Comparer<object>.Default);
}
public static IOrderedEnumerable<dynamic> ThenByDescending(this IOrderedEnumerable<dynamic> source, string property)
{
    return Enumerable.ThenByDescending<dynamic, object>(source, AccessorCache.GetAccessor(property), Comparer<object>.Default);
}