def METHOD_NAME(self):
    """test that a scalar select as a column is returned as such
    and that type conversion works OK.
    (this is half a SQLAlchemy Core test and half to catch database
    backends that may have unusual behavior with scalar selects.)
    """
    datetable = self.tables.has_dates
    s = select([datetable.alias('x').c.today]).as_scalar()
    s2 = select([datetable.c.id, s.label('somelabel')])
    row = config.db.execute(s2).first()
    eq_(row['somelabel'], datetime.datetime(2006, 5, 12, 12, 0, 0))