this is what I ended up doing, based on an answer I got from MSDN c# Forums:
create an extension on DataTable to enable LINQ euering of the Datatable:
public static class DataTableExtensions
{
public static IEnumerable<DataRow> RowsAsEnumerable ( this DataTable source )
{
return (source != null) ? source.Rows.OfType<DataRow>() : Enumerable.Empty<DataRow>();
}
}
then modified my code as below:
//Get IDs to delete
var deleteIds = from r in emails.RowsAsEnumerable()
where String.Compare(r["failEmail"].ToString(), "fail", true) == 0
select r["itemID"];
//Get all rows to delete
var rows2Delete = (from r in emails.RowsAsEnumerable()
where deleteIds.Contains(r["itemID"])
select r).ToList();
//Now delete them
foreach (var row in rows2Delete)
emails.Rows.Remove(row);
emails.AcceptChanges();
and now it works, just wish I could do it the normal way successfully.