Mapping relations to non-primary keys

In legacy databases, sometimes data is stored in ways that doesn't quite map to an object model. One such scenario is when the relation between for example a Customer and its ContactPersons is controlled by a column other than the primary key in the Customer table. NHibernate provides a way to handle these relations, using the property-ref mapping attribute.

Getting ready

Complete the Getting ready instructions at the beginning of this chapter.

How to do it…

  1. Add a new folder named PropertyRefs to the MappingRecipes project.
  2. Add a class named Customer to the folder:
    using System.Collections.Generic; namespace MappingRecipes.PropertyRefs { public class Customer { public Customer() { ContactPersons=new HashSet<ContactPerson>(); ...

Get NHibernate 4.x Cookbook - Second Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.

Start your free trial