LINQ - Select a *TYPED* item in a collection

Can I use LINQ to return an item in a collection that is the 开发者_开发百科same TYPE as the items in the collection? I am a LINQ Noob trying to avoid looping.

    Dim mostRecentlyCreatedQuestionnaire As ParentQuestionnaireItem = 

CType((From P In questionnaireCollection Order By P.Metadata.CreateDate Descending).Take(1), ParentQuestionnaireItem)

I get an "unable to CAST" error when I include the CTYPE function. I kind of expected that error, but I imagine that if I coul dnot do this, LINQ's usefulness would be diminished and therefore assume that there must be a way...

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Just do this:

Dim mostRecentlyCreatedQuestionnaire As ParentQuestionnaireItem = 

(From P In questionnaireCollection Order By P.Metadata.CreateDate Descending).FirstOrDefault()

The problem with your approach is, that Take returns an enumerable, even if you just take 1.

My answer assumes that questionnaireCollection is strong typed.

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The reason that Take(1) doesn't work is that Take(1) returns a IEnunmerable(Of TSource) or IQueryable(Of TSource) depending on the query, why First return an Object of Type TSource

Dim mostRecentlyCreatedQuestionnaire As ParentQuestionnaireItem = 
DirectCast((From P In questionnaireCollection Order By P.Metadata.CreateDate Descending).First, ParentQuestionnaireItem)