How to map NHibernate from table A to table A itself with many-to-many?

Question

Please help! I couldn't figure it out how to map the following situation:

I have only 1 table.

[Table] User { id, name }

My class look like this

public class User
{
  public int Id { get; set; }
  public string Name { get; set; }

  public ISet<User> Friends { get; set; }
}

Each user has relationship with other users. e.g.'User A' can has many friends which is other User.

What should be the mapping for this? I think this should be Many-to-Many relationship but I don't really know how the HBM will look like?

Thanks,

Answer 1

I think this should be Many-to-Many relationship

You are correct. In your scenario you will need to use a self-referential many-to-many mapping. But using a single Users table you cannot represent the relation between users and friends (using a single table you could represent a self-referential parent-child relationship). You will need an intermediary table to achieve this. Here's an example using SQLite ADO.NET provider to show one possible way of modeling your scenario:

User.hbm.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<hibernate-mapping xmlns="urn:nhibernate-mapping-2.2"
    namespace="Test" assembly="test">

    <class name="User" table="Users">
        <id name="Id" column="id">
            <generator class="native"/>
        </id>
        <property name="Name" column="name"/>
        <set name="Friends" table="Friends">
            <key column="user_id"/>
            <many-to-many class="User" column="friend_id"/>
        </set>
    </class>

</hibernate-mapping>

From the above mapping you will notice the use of the following tables: Users and Friends

And here's the code:

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Data.SQLite;
using NHibernate;
using NHibernate.Cfg;
using Iesi.Collections.Generic;

namespace Test
{
    class Program
    {
        public static void Main() 
        {
            if (File.Exists("nhibernate.db"))
            {
                File.Delete("nhibernate.db");
            }
            ExecuteCommand("create table Users (id integer, name string)");
            ExecuteCommand("create table Friends (user_id integer, friend_id string)");

            ExecuteCommand("insert into Users (id, name) values (1, 'user1')");
            ExecuteCommand("insert into Users (id, name) values (2, 'user2')");
            ExecuteCommand("insert into Users (id, name) values (3, 'user3')");

            // User1 is friend with User2    
            ExecuteCommand("insert into Friends (user_id, friend_id) values (1, 2)");
            // User1 is friend with User3    
            ExecuteCommand("insert into Friends (user_id, friend_id) values (1, 3)");
            // User2 is friend with User1    
            ExecuteCommand("insert into Friends (user_id, friend_id) values (2, 1)");
            // User3 is friend with User1    
            ExecuteCommand("insert into Friends (user_id, friend_id) values (3, 1)");

            ISessionFactory sessionFactory =
                new Configuration().Configure().BuildSessionFactory();
            ISession session = sessionFactory.OpenSession();
            User user = session.Get<User>(1);
            Console.WriteLine(user.Friends.Count);

            session.Close();
            sessionFactory.Close();
        }

        private static void ExecuteCommand(string sql)
        {
            using (SQLiteConnection connection = new SQLiteConnection("Data Source=nhibernate.db;Version=3"))
            using (SQLiteCommand command = new SQLiteCommand(sql, connection))
            {
                connection.Open();
                command.ExecuteNonQuery();
            }
        }
    }

    class User 
    {
        public virtual int Id { get; set; }
        public virtual string Name { get; set; }
        public virtual ISet<User> Friends { get; set; }
    }
}

And finally for the sake of completeness here's my config file:

<?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="connection.provider">NHibernate.Connection.DriverConnectionProvider</property>
            <property name="connection.driver_class">NHibernate.Driver.SQLite20Driver</property>
            <property name="dialect">NHibernate.Dialect.SQLiteDialect</property>
            <property name="connection.connection_string">Data Source=nhibernate.db;Version=3</property>

            <mapping assembly="test" />
        </session-factory>
    </hibernate-configuration>
</configuration>