Language Integrated Query (LINQ)
- pronounced “link”
- is a Microsoft .NET Framework component that adds native data querying capabilities to .NET languages, originally released as a major part of .NET Framework 3.5 in 2007
- extends the language by the addition of query expressions, which are akin to SQL statements, and can be used to conveniently extract and process data from:
- arrays
- enumerable classes
- XML documents
- relational databases
- third-party data sources