[Solved] Getting the Latest Value of a Table Using Entity Framework Core


I have an order table with several fields, and multiple users can place orders simultaneously. Now, I want to retrieve the latest record inserted into the table.
If you want to retrieve the latest value of a table using Entity Framework, we consider sorting the table by a timestamp or an incremental identifier and then fetching the top-most record. Let's consider an example where we want to get the latest order from an Order table.
  1. Query the Order table and order the results by a timestamp or an incremental identifier in descending order to get the latest record first.
  2. Retrieve the top-most record from the sorted results, which represents the latest order.
In below code ,we define an Order entity representing an order with properties such as IdOrderName, and OrderDate. We then create a OrderDbContext class that inherits from DbContext to interact with the database.

Example Code:

using System;
using System.Linq;

public class Order
{
    
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string OrderName { get; set; }
    public DateTime OrderDate { get; set; }
}

public class OrderDbContext : DbContext
{
    public DbSet<Order> Orders { get; set; }

    protected override void OnConfiguring(DbContextOptionsBuilder optionsBuilder)
    {
        // Configure your database connection here
        optionsBuilder.UseSqlServer("YourConnectionString");
    }
}

public class OrderManager
{
    public Order GetLatestOrder()
    {
        using (var dbContext = new OrderDbContext())
        {
            // Query the Order table and order the results by OrderDate in descending order
            var latestOrder = dbContext.Orders.OrderByDescending(o => o.OrderDate).FirstOrDefault();

            return latestOrder;
        }
    }
}

// Usage
class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        var orderManager = new OrderManager();
        var latestOrder = orderManager.GetLatestOrder();

        if (latestOrder != null)
        {
            Console.WriteLine($"Latest Order: ID - {latestOrder.Id}, Name - {latestOrder.OrderName}, Date - {latestOrder.OrderDate}");
        }
        else
        {
            Console.WriteLine("No orders found in the database.");
        }
    }
}


The OrderManager class contains a method GetLatestOrder which queries the Orders table, orders the results by OrderDate in descending order, and retrieves the top-most record using FirstOrDefault. Finally, in the Main method of our program, we instantiate OrderManager and call GetLatestOrder to get the latest order from the database.