Hi all,

Is there any tool anybody knows of that can generate an .hbm.xml from a .cs class file.

I realise I should be using ActiveRecord but it is a bit late in the day for that.

Paul

Have you had a look at the NHibernate.Mapping namespace? It allows you to put attributes into the class file rather than explicitly writing an hbm.xml file. Check the documentation appendices for details. Otherwise not sure what you mean.

I will definitely check that out.

I guess what I wanted was to be able to point some tool at a .cs file and generate the .hbm.xml.

I am using the schemaexport facility to generate the db but am getting dragged down writing the mapping file.

What advantage does active record have over the mapping attributes?

If any

I would say that essentially the mappings are the part that you have to do explicitly because they are the mechanism for defining how your classes relate to your underlying database. How can any tool know automatically what database table or field a specific property of a class is supposed to map to? This is something you need to provide as the architect of the solution.

Once you have mapping files you *could* potentially generate classes or the database from these because information about both exists in the mapping. I wouldn't recommend generating classes from mappings, but it can work quite well for generating the database.

Cheers,

Symon.