When mapping a relation as such:



the parent is not retrieved when no parent_id is available in the database.

However, if the mapping is a composite key like so:


I would expect that a null in any of the id's (p_id1 or id2) would also cause the relation to be not retrieved.
There does not seem to be a way to let nhibernate know that the relation does not exist!

What does the composite key look like? If both columns are null, NH should probably consider the object non-existent.

one column is null, the other is not.

I can confirm that it will consider the object non-existent if both columns are null.
I guess then it might not be incorrect behavior. However, it would be great if there was some kind of strategy that you could choose here.

As a workaround, I have created a view that will expose another column that will either be a real value, or also null if the first column is null..