LINQ Pitfalls: Using external variables in projections

Another issue with NHibernate.Linq provider that surprised me a lot is about variables (or constants) that appear in Select expressions. It seems that you can use it, but once only! See this simple code:

var result1 = session.Query<River>()
    .Select(r => new { r.Name, Value = 1 })
    .First();
Console.WriteLine("a) {0} = 1?", result1.Value);

var result2 = session.Query<River>()
    .Select(r => new { r.Name, Value = 2 })
    .First();
Console.WriteLine("b) {0} = 2?", result2.Value);

Note that the queries differ in constant value only. But the difference is pretty obvious. Well, not for NHibernate. This is the actual output:

a) 1 = 1?
b) 1 = 2?

It seems that NHibernate parses expressions only once and caches it internally, ignoring the actual member values. NHibernate will always use cached value 1. This is a silent fail, much worse situation than failing with NotSupportedException or something else.

What is the workaround? Select only data that comes from database and add all other external values in code, outside NHibernate.Linq:

var result = session.Query<River>()
    .Select(r => r.Name)
    .First()
    .Select(r => new { Name = r, Value = 1 });

This is already known bug (see this JIRA entry), marked as critical, but still unresolved. It influences Select only. Values in other expressions, i.e. in Where calls, are not cached and work as you may expect.

Well, I'll maybe try to make a bit more insight into what is supported in NHibernate.Linq and what not...