Entity Framework Code First will build the database for you if it doesn't exist and structure it based on your mapping objects. I believe Roundhouse will do the same thing with Fluent Mapping files using NHibernate.
Are there any other ORM's (or tools like Roundhouse) that will take care of all your SQL DDL creation and execution?
NHibernate does not need Fluent Mappings to generate database schema. This feature is built into the NHibernate core:
new SchemaExport(_configuration).Execute(false, true, false);
In my experience however this is mostly useful for in-memory integration tests or initial rollouts. Production databases need to be upgraded. If you stick around, then you will need to add and remove columns, tables and foreign keys without affecting data. There is a continuity and versioning aspect to it. NHibernate only knows your current mapping. It does not know for example that 2 months ago you stored your customer first and last name in column called "CustomerName" and then you decided to split this into two columns "FirstName" and "LastName" (which is probably the most primitive change that can be made). NHibernate job is to map your current schema to objects, not to remember data modeling choices from few years ago.
In my experience there is no magic tool that will write upgrade scripts, they have to be written manually or at least reviewed by developer. Tools can provide you a framework for executing these scripts, like RoundhouseE. Scott Allen has an excellent series about 'forward-only, run-once' approach.
hibernate does if you set hbm2ddl.auto to create or create-drop or update in the config file. Using Java that is, I assume its the same for nHibernate.
If an ORM does not do ddl, there is not much point in having it, well its a key feature at least. Imho.
Related
Do you use SchemaExport and SchemaUpdate in real applications? Initially, you create model and then generate schema? Does it work? Or, you use it only for tests...
Usually, I create db (using visual studio database project) and then mappings and persistent classes or EF entities using designer. But now, I want to try code first approach with Fluent NHibernate.
I have researched SchemaExport and SchemaUpdate and found some issues. For example, update doesn't delete db objects, creates not null columns like nullable if table exists, doesn't generate primary key on many-to-many tables and so on. It mean that I have to recreate db very often. But, what's about data? And, how to deploy changes to production db and so on...
I want to know do you really use code first and SchemaExport(SchemaUpdate) in your applications? May be you can give me some advices...
I use SchemaUpdate in production. It is safe precisely because it never does destructive operations like deleting columns. However, it is not a comprehensive solution for updating your database. If you use it you will still have to supplement it with script to update your schema to do things like deleting (as you mention), indexes, changing column type, adding table data, etc. But SchemaUpdate covers the 90% case for me.
The only downside I've discovered is that over time it seems to occasionally add duplicate foreign-key constraints to my table.
One more thing: you should run SchemaUpdate manually from a build tool, not your app itself. It is not safe to give your application the rights to modify your db schema!
I use SchemaUpdate/SchemaExport for rapid evolution of my model, but they are not a replacement for a database migration tool. As you mention, data cannot be migrated in a sensible manner in many cases. The tool does not have enough context. (e.g. How can you automatically migrate a FullName column to FirstName/LastName?) I answered a similar question here where I discuss db migration tools in the context of NHibernate.
NHibernate, ORM : how is refactoring handled? existing data?
Yes, you can use these in real applications; I do.
Of course, almost all the work happens in that first go. My practice has been to create a separate project that references the mappings in my main project assembly and handles database creation and the initial data import, if any.
Once the project is in production, I usually unload that project from the solution, but keep it around for reference or if I ever need to switch from create scripts to update scripts.
As for the way NHibernate creates the database, you have to do a little more specification in your Fluent mappings than you otherwise might. I like to specify null/not null, foreign key constraint names, etc. to have maximum control over the way the database gets created.
I don't think you'd ever want to use automapping in this scenario.
Just with any generating code whether it be poco generation from a tool or database generation as in your question, it will probably get you 80% of the way there. From there it would be wise to tweak it the other 20% to add your indexes and any other performance tweaks to get it just right.
Is it possible to generate a schema of a database from nHibernate, where I have provided nHibernate with the configuration to the database but I have not written any mappings.
I wish to get the Database MetaData/Schema programmatically.
I am using an Oracle Database. I have tried two approaches:
Approach one:
public DatabaseMetadata GetMetadata(DbConnection connectionIn)
{
return new DatabaseMetadata(connectionIn, _dialect);
}
Problem: This seems to be what I need however, although it correctly connects, it hasn't picked up any of my tables. All I provided was the nHibernate Configuration object which was populated with the contents of my nHibernate.xml.config file (connection string, driver client, etc).
Question: Why would it not return the table data? It's connected correctly but finds nothing!
Approach two:
public void DatabaseSchema()
{
var schema = new SchemaExport(nHibernateConfiguration);
schema.SetOutputFile("schema.dll");
schema.Create(true, true);
}
nHibernateConfiguration is an instance (property on class) of the nHibernate Configuration object, populated with contents from the nHibernate.xml.config class.
Problem: This simply doesn't work. Crashes with the following exception:
NHibernate.MappingException : Dialect
does not support identity key
generation
I suspect this will only generate a schema based on mappings you have created? I have created no mappings. The idea is this will work against whichever database I have connected to a generate a schema for it.
Question: Is my belief that this method will only generate a Schema based on my mappings? If not, Am I using it correctly?
Hopefully this is clear enough, comment if I need to provide more info.
Thanks In Advance.
To be clear: I have a database and want to get meta data representing the database, a schema.
NHibernate is actually based on the mapping files. You could generate classes or tables from them. There are tools to generate the mapping files, but they are based on the classes, not the tables.
Answers to your specific questions:
Approach one: NHibernate does not read table definitions from the database. All the table definitions need to be specified in the mapping files.
Approach two: SchemaExport creates an SQL file (Create tables, indexes etc) from the mapping definitions. It is actually recommended to use it, unless you need to cope with legacy databases. The output file should be called *.sql, not *.dll.
The error you get is most probably because you try to create an identity id on an oracle database (or another which does not support identity columns). Use hilo instead (or, if you don't like it, guid.comb or native). I just wonder why you get this error, I thought that you didn't write any mapping files?
Conclusion:
I don't know of any tool which create NHibernate mapping files from database tables. There may be one, most probably it is not free or not mature (because otherwise it would be well known). So I suggest to think about generating the table definitions instead, or, in case you have a legacy database, you need to go through writing the mapping files manually.
There are several tools to help you out but the two I use the most are the following two.
NHibernate Schema Tool
NHibernate Mapping Generator
If you already have a schema you can use the NHibernate Mapping Generator to create your mappings. You can then use the mappings for whatever you want. Modify them and use NHibernate Schema Tool to manage the actual schema.
If you don't have any schema and that is what you are trying to create you are on the right track. First you need to "map" your classes. Preferably using Fluent NHibernate or ConfORM like Michael Maddox suggested.
I don't know the purpose of this. If it is database schema management I would recommend against using NHibernate. NHibernate was never developed as a schema manager tool so it probably should not be used this way. Admittedly I might have misunderstood you somehow and this answer could be completely wrong.
I may be interpreting the question wrong, it's not really clear what you are asking for.
Assuming you have created classes and configured NHibernate correctly and you want to create tables in the database for those classes, you have at least two potential ways to try to generate a database without creating NHibernate mappings, both of which will likely work much better with at least some hints about how to do the mappings:
Fluent NHibernate Automapper
ConfORM
There is a decent learning curve for both options.
Another option is to try one of the commercial visual designers for NHibernate, although those tools aren't quite mature enough to do this really well in my experience.
Core NHibernate is not designed or intended to create tables without mappings files.
I'm trying to get into using Fluent NHibernate, and I have a couple questions. I'm finding the documentation to be lacking.
I understand that Fluent NHibernate / NHibernate allows you to auto-generate a database schema. Do people usually only do this for Test/Dev databases? Or is that OK to do for a production database? If it's ok for production, how do you make sure that you're not blowing away production data every time you run your app?
Once the database schema is already created, and you have production data, when new tables/columns/etc. need to be added to the Test and/or Production database, do people allow NHibernate to do this, or should this be done manually?
Is there any REALLY GOOD documentation on Fluent NHibernate? (Please don't point me to the wiki because in following along with the "Your first project" code building it myself, I was getting run-time errors because they forget to tell you to add a reference. Not cool.)
Thanks,
Andy
I've been using Fluent NHibernate Automapping for a few months now. I'm by no means an expert, but can take a stab at your questions...
FNH Automapping does indeed create DB schemas from POCO classes, including lists of other objects (this was the reason I chose NHibernate in the first place).
When you change schemas, you have to rerun the automapping, which does drop the whole database, unfortunately. In my case, it's not a big problem because I'm importing existing binary data files, so I just have to re-import my data every time the schema changes. I've read that there's some data migration support available with NHibernate, but have no experience with this. (BTW, Subsonic will do data migration, but it's automapping functionality is far more rudimentary - at least it was when I evaluated it a few months ago)
FNH documentation is one of my pet peeves - they have not even added Intellisense help on the method names, etc. (But they get really huffy when you point that out - ask me how I know!) I've made a couple of edits to the wiki when I could, but there's so much more that could be done there. The best approach is to start with a working example (i.e.
this one from Nikola Malovic, and post questions to the support form if (when!) you run into trouble. In general, I've found the FNH community pretty helpful, and have been able to work through all my difficulties. They've also fixed a couple of bugs I've found.
Overall, using FNH has been a huge win for my project - highly recommended!
I don't use Fluent, but I can help with classic NHibernate.
yes, the creation of the schema is very recommendable for production use (Schema Export). When you do this is up to you. For instance, you could create the database by an installer. You shouldn't drop existing databases, but this is a decision of you application.
I don't understand this question. Do you mean you need to upgrade an existing database to a new database schema? This is unfortunately something you need to implement yourself. NH can't do much about this, because it is very specific to you data and the changes you made. There is also a Schema Update or something like this, which is not recommended for production use.
I don't use Fluent, so I can't help here.
We are currently using Fluent NHibernate and SQL Server 2008 in our c# development, however, the database schema has become too complex for Fluent to re-create the database when necessary so we are making changes to the database using scripts.
This also means that the entity and mapping classes also need to be changed to remain in sync with the DB schema.
Is there a tool or some clever way of doing this "automatically"?
If we were to use DevForce from IdeaBlade, for example, their framework has tools to check the mapping against the schema and to update the mappings if required and we were wondering if something similar existed for Fluent.
So, ladies and gentlemen, over to you...
Not really. Just update your mappings as you write your script. Chances are you'll be changing your entities as-well anyway.
I'm using NHibernate 2 and PostgreSQL in my project. SchemaExport class does a great job generating DDL scheme for database, but it's great until the first application.
Is there any way to generate "migration" DLL (batch of "ALTER TABLE"'s instead of DROP/CREATE pair) using NHibernate mapping files?
Look into SchemaUpdate. Very similiar API as SchemaExport but it only creates migrations.
While SchemaUpdate very much answers my needs, it still has several problems. For example it refuses to put a new restriction on existing database column even if it's not gonna conflict with existing data.
I'm going froward to extend SchemaUpdate a little bit or, if fail, switch to one of that hand driven migration tools (for example Rails one).