LINQ is an acronym for Language Integrated Query, and was introduced with Visual Studio 2008. LINQ is a set of features that extends query capabilities to the .NET language syntax by adding sets of new standard query operators that allow data manipulation, regardless of the data source. Supported data sources are: .NET Framework collections, SQL Server databases, ADO.NET Datasets, XML documents, and any collection of objects that support
IEnumerable or the generic IEnumerable<T> interface, in both C# and Visual Basic. In short, LINQ bridges the gap between the world of objects and the world of data.