Configuring NHibernate with Fluent NHibernate

The third-party Fluent NHibernate library has its own syntax to configure NHibernate. In this recipe, we'll show you how to configure NHibernate using this syntax.

Getting ready

1. Complete the steps in Installing NHibernate recipe.
2. Add a console application project to your solution called ConfigByFNH.
3. Set it as the Startup project for your solution.
4. Install NHibernate to the ConfigByFNH project using NuGet Package Manager Console.
5. Install the package FluentNHibernate to ConfigByFNH project using NuGet Package Manager Console.
6. In ConfigByFNH, add a reference to the Eg.Core project.

How to do it…

1. Add an App.config file with this configuration:

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
   <configuration>
     <connectionStrings>
       <add name="db" connectionString="Server=.\SQLEXPRESS; Database=NHCookbook; Trusted_Connection=SSPI" />
     </connectionStrings>
   </configuration>

2. In Program.cs, add the following using statements:

   using FluentNHibernate.Cfg;
   using FluentNHibernate.Cfg.Db;

3. In the Main method, add this code:

   var config = MsSqlConfiguration.MsSql2012
     .ConnectionString(connstr => connstr.FromConnectionStringWithKey("db"))
     .AdoNetBatchSize(100);
   var nhConfig = Fluently.Configure()
     .Database(config)
     .BuildConfiguration();
   var sessionFactory = nhConfig.BuildSessionFactory();
   Console.WriteLine("NHibernate configured fluently!");
   Console.ReadKey();

4. Build and run your application. You should see the text NHibernate configured fluently!

How it works…

Our fluent configuration can be broken down into three parts. First, we configure these properties:

1. We set the dialect property to MsSql2012Dialect when we use the MsSql2012 static property of MsSqlConfiguration.
2. The connection.connection_string_name object is set to db with a call to FromConnectionStringWithKey.
3. We set adonet.batch_size to 100 with a call to AdoNetBatchSize.

Next, from the fluent configuration, we build a standard NHibernate configuration. Finally, we build a session factory using the BuildSessionFactory method.

See also

• Configuring NHibernate with App.config or Web.config
• Configuring NHibernate with XML
• Configuring NHibernate with code