Query Microsoft Access MDB Database using LINQ and C#

Question

I have a *.MDB database file, and I am wondering if it is possible or recommended to work against it using LINQ in C#. I am also wondering what some simple examples would lo

Answer 1

I wrote a small sample program to test this out with David's answer. You'll need to make an access database and manually create the DBML for Linq-to-SQL, as you cannot drag 'n drop them.

Inserts fail, citing Missing semicolon (;) at end of SQL statement. but queries seem to work alright.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Data.OleDb;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
using Linq2Access.Data;

namespace Linq2Access
{
    class Program
    {
        static readonly string AppPath = Path.GetDirectoryName(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location);
        static readonly string DbPath = Path.Combine(AppPath, "Data", "database.accdb");
        static readonly string DbConnString = @"Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source='" + DbPath + "';Persist Security Info=False;";

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            if (!File.Exists(DbPath))
                throw new Exception("Database file does not exist!");

            using (OleDbConnection connection = new OleDbConnection(DbConnString))
            using (DataRepositoryDataContext db = new DataRepositoryDataContext(connection))
            {
                List projects = new List();
                for (int i = 1; i <= 10; i++)
                {
                    dbProject p = new dbProject() { Title = "Project #" + i };
                    for (int j = 1; j <= 10; j++)
                    {
                        dbTask t = new dbTask() { Title = "Task #" + (i * j) };
                        p.dbTasks.Add(t);
                    }
                    projects.Add(p);
                }

                try
                {
                    //This will fail to submit
                    db.dbProjects.InsertAllOnSubmit(projects);
                    db.SubmitChanges();
                    Console.WriteLine("Write succeeded! {0} projects, {1} tasks inserted",
                                        projects.Count,
                                        projects.Sum(x => x.dbTasks.Count));
                }
                catch(Exception ex)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine("Write FAILED. Details:");
                    Console.WriteLine(ex);
                    Console.WriteLine();
                }

                try
                {
                    //However, if you create the items manually in Access they seem to query fine
                    var projectsFromDb = db.dbProjects.Where(x => x.Title.Contains("#1"))
                                                        .OrderBy(x => x.ProjectID)
                                                        .ToList();

                    Console.WriteLine("Query succeeded! {0} Projects, {1} Tasks",
                                        projectsFromDb.Count,
                                        projectsFromDb.Sum(x => x.dbTasks.Count));
                }
                catch (Exception ex)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine("Query FAILED. Details:");
                    Console.WriteLine(ex);
                    Console.WriteLine();
                }

                Console.WriteLine();
                Console.WriteLine("Press any key to continue...");
                Console.ReadKey();
            }
        }
    }
}