How to get max value of a column using Entity Framework?

Question

To get maximum value of a column that contains integer, I can use the following T-SQL comand

SELECT MAX(expression )
FROM tables
WHERE predicates;
         


        

Answer 1

Your column is nullable

int maxAge = context.Persons.Select(p => p.Age).Max() ?? 0;

Your column is non-nullable

int maxAge = context.Persons.Select(p => p.Age).Cast().Max() ?? 0;

In both cases, you can use the second code. If you use DefaultIfEmpty, you will do a bigger query on your server. For people who are interested, here are the EF6 equivalent:

Query without DefaultIfEmpty

SELECT 
    [GroupBy1].[A1] AS [C1]
    FROM ( SELECT 
        MAX([Extent1].[Age]) AS [A1]
        FROM [dbo].[Persons] AS [Extent1]
    )  AS [GroupBy1]

Query with DefaultIfEmpty

SELECT 
    [GroupBy1].[A1] AS [C1]
    FROM ( SELECT 
        MAX([Join1].[A1]) AS [A1]
        FROM ( SELECT 
            CASE WHEN ([Project1].[C1] IS NULL) THEN 0 ELSE [Project1].[Age] END AS [A1]
            FROM   ( SELECT 1 AS X ) AS [SingleRowTable1]
            LEFT OUTER JOIN  (SELECT 
                [Extent1].[Age] AS [Age], 
                cast(1 as tinyint) AS [C1]
                FROM [dbo].[Persons] AS [Extent1]) AS [Project1] ON 1 = 1
        )  AS [Join1]
    )  AS [GroupBy1]