Power of LINQ and Chart.Js in .NET Core API: How to Analyze Data and Visualize Insights

As a software developer, you may come across situations where you need to query and manipulate data efficiently. This is where Language-Integrated Query (LINQ) comes in. LINQ is a powerful feature in .NET that allows you to query and manipulate data from various data sources such as collections, arrays, databases, and XML documents. In this blog, we will explore how to use LINQ in .NET Core API by solving a fun business problem.

Suppose you work for a car dealership, and you are tasked with analyzing the sales data to identify the top-performing salespeople and car models. You have access to a database that contains information about car sales, including the salesperson’s name, the car model, the sale date, and the sale price.

To solve this problem using LINQ, we first need to set up our .NET Core API project and establish a connection to the database. In this example, we will be using SQL Server as our database, and Entity Framework Core to connect to it.

Step 1: Setting up the Project and Database Connection

To get started, open Visual Studio and create a new .NET Core API project. Next, install the following packages using the NuGet Package Manager:

• Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SqlServer
• Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Tools