Important to note that this isn’t a true example by any measure. It merely shows what to put in your App.config (especially since the official documentation mostly covers the Java version, which naturally has no idea what App.config is. And what little there is for NHibernate, is for the last release.

The example is very simple, it mainly shows:

• The contents of App.config

• An example *.hbm.xml file for the sample User class.

• If you should wish, the whole Visual Studio 2008 Solution file

I used Visual C# 2008 Express Edition and for the database I used SQL Server Express 2005 (make sure to get both “Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition ” and “SQL Server Management Studio Express”, the latter part is the GUI to manage the database, unless talking pure SQL into one end of a pipe satisfies you).

Download the entire VS 2008 Solution.

Configs, etc

The App.config looks like

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
  <configSections>
    <section name="hibernate-configuration"
             type="NHibernate.Cfg.ConfigurationSectionHandler, NHibernate" />
  </configSections>
  <hibernate-configuration xmlns="urn:nhibernate-configuration-2.2" >
    <session-factory>
      <property name="dialect">
        NHibernate.Dialect.MsSql2005Dialect
      </property>
      <property name="connection.provider">
        NHibernate.Connection.DriverConnectionProvider
      </property>
      <property name="connection.driver_class">
        NHibernate.Driver.SqlClientDriver
      </property>
      <property name="connection.connection_string">
        Server=SVENDSDESKTOP\SQLEXPRESS;
        Database=NHibernate;
        Integrated Security=True;
      </property>
    </session-factory>
  </hibernate-configuration>
</configuration>

The NHibernateTest.User.hbm.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<hibernate-mapping xmlns="urn:nhibernate-mapping-2.2" namespace="NHibernateTest">
  <class name="User, NHibernateTest" table="users">
    <id name="Id" column="LogonId" type="String" length="20">
      <generator class="assigned" />
    </id>
    <property name="UserName" column="Name" type="String" length="40"/>
    <property name="Password" type="String" length="20"/>
    <property name="EmailAddress" type="String" length="40"/>
    <property name="LastLogon" type="DateTime"/>
  </class>
</hibernate-mapping>

And the startup code is the following.

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    Configuration cfg = new Configuration();
    cfg.AddXmlFile("NHibernateTest.User.hbm.xml");

    ISessionFactory factory = cfg.BuildSessionFactory();
    ISession session = factory.OpenSession();
    ITransaction transaction = session.BeginTransaction();

    User newUser = new User();
    newUser.Id = "joe_cool";
    newUser.UserName = "Joseph Cool";
    newUser.Password = "abc123";
    newUser.EmailAddress = "joe@cool.com";
    newUser.LastLogon = DateTime.Now;

    // Tell NHibernate that this object should be saved
    session.Save(newUser);

    // commit all of the changes to the DB and close the ISession
    transaction.Commit();
    session.Close();
}

Annnd, the SQL needed would be the following. Note that the database used is “NHibernate”.

USE [NHibernate]
GO
/****** Object:  Table [dbo].[users]    Script Date: 07/23/2008 22:32:00 ******/
SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
GO
CREATE TABLE [dbo].[users](
	[LogonID] [nvarchar](20) NOT NULL DEFAULT ('0'),
	[Name] [nvarchar](40) NULL DEFAULT (NULL),
	[Password] [nvarchar](20) NULL DEFAULT (NULL),
	[EmailAddress] [nvarchar](40) NULL DEFAULT (NULL),
	[LastLogon] [datetime] NULL DEFAULT (NULL),
PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED
(
	[LogonID] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX  = OFF,
       STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE  = OFF,
       IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF,
       ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS  = ON,
       ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS  = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]