The fact that an index column needs to be specified for an array is annoying. Most of the time I do not have an index column available. The closest thing is perhaps a sort key column, but there is no guarantee that it is sequential or that it is 0-based.

Wouldn't it make sense to allow nHibernate to generate the index automatically? I understand that arrays are sorted collections, and that the order matters, but why does the order have to be dictated by the index? It seems to me like it would make much more sense to have something like a <sort> node instead of the <index> node. This way I can specifiy the sort order of the array elements without being constrained by sequential values.

Another option would be to simply load the array elements in the order in which they are stored in the table if no <index> column is specified.

Am I missing something, is this or an alternative perhaps already implemented in nHibernate?

Have You tried <bag> inestad of <list>?

Gert

I am not using <list>, I am using <array>:



All the solutions I was able to find suggest changing the object model, so that instead of an array I use some kind of IList or other collection class.

I need to use an array so that I have a strongly typed collection of items. It seems silly that I would need to change my object model to accomodate Hibernate. It should be the other way around, Hibernate should be able to accomodate any reasonable object model.

What seems natural to me would be something like:



Is there another way to achieve this in Hibernate?