LINQ to SQL - Select Top N Rows

Before writing a LINQ to SQL query, we first need to create a DataContext using the LINQ to SQL Classes template, to know more on how to create the DataContext refer to the post LINQ to SQL Sample

Once the DataContext is created we can query the Object model using LINQ queries, let us consider the Employee table which has the following structure.

The below code will fetch all the rows from the Employee Table

EmployeeClassesDataContext dbContext = newEmployeeClassesDataContext();

var emp = from employees in dbContext.Employees 

          select employees;

grdEmployees.DataSource = emp;

grdEmployees.DataBind();

Now we will select only the Top 10 rows returned using the following LINQ query

EmployeeClassesDataContext dbContext = newEmployeeClassesDataContext();

var emp = (from e in dbContext.Employees

          select new { e.ID, e.Name, e.Phone }).Take(10);

grdEmployees.DataSource = emp;

grdEmployees.DataBind();

That’s it, Adding Take(n), filters the results and returns only the top n rows from the query.