Netflix OData with LINQ: "The method 'Select' is not supported."

I'm following a (poor?) example of querying the Netflix catalog by using the following code:

NetflixCatalog cat = new NetflixCatalog(CatalogUri);
IQueryable<Title> query = from person in cat.People
                          from t in person.TitlesActedIn
                          where person.Name == searchString
                          orderby t.ReleaseYear
                          select new Title
                          {
                              Name = t.Name,
                              BoxArt = t.BoxArt,
          开发者_开发百科                    Synopsis = t.Synopsis,
                              ReleaseYear = t.ReleaseYear,
                              Runtime = t.Runtime,
                              Type = t.Type,
                              Genres = t.Genres,
                              Cast = t.Cast
                          };

foreach (var title in query)
{
   ...
}

It's blowing up on the foreach line with the above-mentioned error.

I think I can give you a query that works, but I can't explain why yours doesn't work (unless you are happy enough with 'Becauses its OData and they don't support every Linq command')

Try changing your query to something like

NetflixCatalog cat = new NetflixCatalog(CatalogUri);
string searchString = "Michael Caine";
var person = (from r in cat.People where r.Name == searchString select r).Single();

var query  = (from p in cat.People 
              where p.Id == person.Id   
              from t in p.TitlesActedIn
              orderby t.ReleaseYear
              select new Title
                      {
                          Name = t.Name,
                          BoxArt = t.BoxArt,
                          Synopsis = t.Synopsis,
                          ReleaseYear = t.ReleaseYear,
                          Runtime = t.Runtime,
                          Type = t.Type,
                          Genres = t.Genres,
                          Cast = t.Cast
                      };

Note, that this is effectively two queries, but I don't think you can combine them into one query. For example You can't just change

  where p.Id == persion.Id 

to where p.Name == searchString

Now, I'm not sure exactly why, expect that I have learnt that OData is not anything like LinqToSQL (which I am more familar with) and I shouldn't expect it to behave in a similar way.

For example, using linqpad to browse does through up some strange results.

   (from r in People where r.Name == "Michael Caine" select r).Single()

returns

Id             13473 
Name           Michael Caine 
Awards         Collection<TitleAward> (0 items) 
TitlesActedIn  Collection<Title> (0 items) 
TitlesDirected Collection<Title> (0 items) 

which makes it look like he never acted in any films. But

(from r in People where r.Name == "Michael Caine" select  new { r.TitlesActedIn }    ).Single().Dump();

returns an anonymous class { TitlesActedIn = System.Collections.ObjectModel.Collection`1[LINQPad.User.Title] }

which contains 91 titles.

Whereas

(from r in People where r.Name == "Michael Caine" select   r.TitlesActedIn ).Single().Dump();

throws an error : NotSupportedException: Can only specify query options (orderby, where, take, skip) after last navigation.

Hope this helps more than it confuses.