Any Tools to generating mapping-file & class for NHibernate in C#

Question

Hi,

Any opensource tools for Generating NHibernate mapping file as well as class in C#?

If any other that are helpfull in using NHibernate, Please give me tools list.

Thanks.

Answer 1

MyGeneration is a pretty decent generator. And you can always use T4 which ships with Visual Studio 2005+.

Answer 2

I would recommend using T4. I use it myself to generate code from UML-models. I create the models in UML, and then use T4 to generate classes from the models. I wrote a short blog post about it, check it out if you want some more info on my setup.

If you have yet to try T4, there is no better place to start than Scott Hanselman's excellent post about that you can find here. Make sure you check the link list at the end of the post, it contains some of the best references for T4 information available.

You really also should look into Fluent nHibernate, and especially the "Auto Mapping" features that basically automatically generate the mappings from your classes. I use that to, and it is working great so far. You can very easily override the auto generated mappings wherever you have specific needs not covered by the auto generated stuff.

Hope this was helpful, good luck with your projects!

Answer 3

To follow up tmatuschek's answer:

I use FluentNHibernate to rapidly prototype my .hbm.xml files from my models using the Automapping feature like:

.Mappings(m =>
{
    m.AutoMappings.ExportTo(@"c:\temp\mappings\");
    m.AutoMappings.Add(AutoMap.AssemblyOf<MyWidget>());
}

After the files are generated from the automapping, I tweak the generated files, then reconfigure the app to use them instead of Auto/Fluent mappings. I find using the standard .hbm.xml mappings to be much easier once my model has stabilized a bit than using an automated mapper.