asked on

Unable to cast the type 'Anonymous type' to type 'System.String'.

Hi Expert,

I have the codes has no error on compiling but get error when execute it.

public class DepartmentController : ApiController
{
      private DeptEntities db = new DeptEntities();
      List<string> departments = new List<string>();

      public IEnumerable<string> GetDept()
      {
            using (DeptEntities context = new DeptEntities())
            {
                  var result = (from Department in db.Department orderby Department.ID
                                      select new
                                      {
                                           DepartmentName = Department.Name
                                      }).Distinct();

                  if (result == null)
                        throw new HttpResponseException(HttpStatusCode.NotFound);
                  else
                        return result.Cast<string>().ToList();

            }

      }
}

Error:
Unable to cast the type 'Anonymous type' to type 'System.String'.
LINQ to Entities only supports casting EDM primitive or enumeration types.

Please help!

Akilandeshwari N

Add a WHERE clause to your LINQ query and exclude the NULL Departments and try.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

louisfr

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alexcryout

ASKER

Thanks louisfr. It works!

louisfr

I think you can remove all the code after the query. It should never return null, it's already strings, and the return type is IEnumerable.

public IEnumerable<string> GetDept()
{
    using (DeptEntities context = new DeptEntities())
    {
        return (from Department in db.Department orderby Department.ID
                select Department.Name
               ).Distinct();
    }
}

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