Linq: Beware of the 'Access to modified closure' demon
If you're using Linq and Resharper, you've probably seen the warning Resharper shows when you use a foreach loop in which you use the loop variable in a Linq extension method (be it on IQueryable<T> or IEnumerable<T>). In case you don't know what it is or what damage it can do if you ignore the issue, I'll give you a database oriented query (so on IQueryable<T>, using LLBLGen Pro's Linq provider) which creates a dynamic Where clause based on input, the typical scenario you should be careful with when it comes to this particular problem.
var customers = from o in metaData.Order
join c in metaData.Customer on o.CustomerId equals c.CustomerId into oc
from x in oc.DefaultIfEmpty()
select new { CustomerId = x.CustomerId, CompanyName = x.CompanyName, Country = x.Country };
string searchTerms = "U A";
var searchCriteria = searchTerms.Split(new string[] { " " }, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);
foreach(var search in searchCriteria)
{
customers = customers.Where(p => p.Country.Contains(search));
}
var ids = (from c in customers select c.CustomerId).ToArray();
The above code snippet has the demon embedded into itself, likely without you noticing it. Can you spot it? (Ok, I already gave it away a bit with the foreach loop hint).
The problem with the above query is that it will produce a WHERE clause in the SQL query with two LIKE statements which both filter on %A%. How's that possible? The cause is in the 'Access to modified closure' problem: search is a local variable. The first time the foreach is ran, search will have the value "U". The .Where() extension method will add a MethodCall expression with a call to Where(lambda) with inside the lambda among other things a ConstantExpression referring to the local variable search for the value. And that's precisely the problem: when the foreach loop is looping again, search will get another value: namely "A". As there are no more values, the loop ends and the query is executed.
Well, executed is more complex than it sounds: first, the expression tree has to be converted into SQL. When the linq provider runs into the two .Where() extension method calls, it evaluates the argument, which is a LambdaExpression which contains a ConstantExpression which refers to... a local variable called search. It can't do anything else but reading that variable, which has the value ... "A" for both, as it reads the same variable. So it's not storing the constant value search has when the call to Where and Contains is made, it's storing a reference to the local variable.
How to fix this? It's pretty straight forward: create a new local variable:
foreach(var search in searchCriteria)
{
var searchTerm = search;
customers = customers.Where(p => p.Country.Contains(searchTerm));
}
With each iteration, it creates a new local variable, and thus each Contains call will refer to a different variable and thus the SQL query will contain the two LIKE predicates the way it should, one with %U% and one with %A%.
This subtle issue pops up with Linq to Objects as well, so beware when you pass the foreach loop variable to a Linq extension method: if the query doesn't run at that same spot, you likely will run into this problem and will have an obscure bug to track down.
Happy hunting 