NHibernate 3.0 Cookbook

Get solutions to common NHibernate problems to develop high-quality performance-critical data access applications Master the full range of NHibernate features Reduce hours of application development time and get better application architecture and performance Create, maintain, and update your database structure automatically with the help of NHibernate Written and tested for NHibernate 3.0 with input from the development team distilled in to easily accessible concepts and examples Part of Packt’s Cookbook series: each recipe is a carefully organized sequence of instructions to complete the task as efficiently as possible

(For more resources on NHibernate, see here.)

Getting ready

Download the LinqSpecs library from http://linqspecs.codeplex.com. Copy LinqSpecs.dll from the Downloads folder to your solution’s libs folder.

Complete the Setting up an NHibernate Repository recipe.

How to do it…

1. In Eg.Core.Data and Eg.Core.Data.Impl, add a reference to LinqSpecs.dll.
2. Add these two methods to the IRepository interface.

   IEnumerable<T> FindAll(Specification<T> specification);
   T FindOne(Specification<T> specification);
   
   

3. Add the following three methods to NHibernateRepository:

   public IEnumerable<T> FindAll(Specification<T> specification)
   {
     var query = GetQuery(specification);
     return Transact(() => query.ToList());
   }
   
   public T FindOne(Specification<T> specification)
   {
     var query = GetQuery(specification);
     return Transact(() => query.SingleOrDefault());
   }
   
   private IQueryable<T> GetQuery(
     Specification<T> specification)
   {
     return session.Query<T>()
       .Where(specification.IsSatisfiedBy());
   }

4. Add the following specification to Eg.Core.Data.Queries:

   public class MoviesDirectedBy : Specification<Movie>
   {
   
    private readonly string _director;
   
    public MoviesDirectedBy(string director)
    {
      _director = director;
    }
   
    public override
       Expression<Func<Movie, bool>> IsSatisfiedBy()
    {
      return m => m.Director == _director;
    }
   }

5. Add another specification to Eg.Core.Data.Queries, using the following code:

   public class MoviesStarring : Specification<Movie>
   {
   
    private readonly string _actor;
   
    public MoviesStarring(string actor)
    {
     _actor = actor;
    }
   
    public override
       Expression<Func<Movie, bool>> IsSatisfiedBy()
    {
     return m => m.Actors.Any(a => a.Actor == _actor);
    }
   }

How it works…

The specification pattern allows us to separate the process of selecting objects from the concern of which objects to select. The repository handles selecting objects, while the specification objects are concerned only with the objects that satisfy their requirements.

In our specification objects, the IsSatisfiedBy method of the specification objects returns a LINQ expression to determine which objects to select.

In the repository, we get an IQueryable from the session, pass this LINQ expression to the Where method, and execute the LINQ query. Only the objects that satisfy the specification will be returned.

For a detailed explanation of the specification pattern, check out http://martinfowler.com/apsupp/spec.pdf.

There’s more…

To use our new specifications with the repository, use the following code:

var movies = repository.FindAll(
    new MoviesDirectedBy("Stephen Spielberg"));

Specification composition

We can also combine specifications to build more complex queries. For example, the following code will find all movies directed by Steven Speilberg starring Harrison Ford:

var movies = repository.FindAll(
               new MoviesDirectedBy("Steven Spielberg")
               & new MoviesStarring("Harrison Ford"));

This may result in expression trees that NHibernate is unable to parse. Be sure to test each combination.

Summary

In this article we covered:

• Using LINQ Specifications in the data access layer

Further resources on this subject:

• NHibernate 3.0: Working with the Data Access Layer
• NHibernate 3.0: Using Named Queries in the Data Access Layer
• NHibernate 3.0: Using ICriteria and Paged Queries in the data access layer
• NHibernate 3.0: Testing Using NHibernate Profiler and SQLite
• Using the Fluent NHibernate Persistence Tester and the Ghostbusters Test