Not sure if NH will do this but I thought I'd run it by you all. I'm using the 1.2 version w/ sql server.

I have a class called Spec (for specification) and a class called SpecValue that holds the specification values. Each SpecValue has a many-to-one to its Spec. I have another class called Floorplan. I would like the floorplan to have a property thats a generic IDicionary of SpecValues. But i'd like the key to be that SpecValue's Spec.Name which is a string. So I could do things like this:

var specName = someSpec.Name;
myFloorplan.SpecValues[specName].Value;

//these should be equal
myFloorplan.SpecValue[specName].Spec.Name == specName;

In the database there would just be a table called, floorplan, then one called Spec with name and ID, and finally SpecValue with ID, Value and foreign key SpecID, foreign key FloorplanID.

I don't really care about adding the specvalues to the dictionary to be saved, but when I get them out of the database, it would be nice if i could look the values up in floorplan using the Spec names.

Is this possible in NH, or am I getting too complicated?

I don't believe it supports this out of the box. What I would probably do is have something like this

class CustomerDAO
public IList<Customer> FindAll()


class CustomerMapping
public IDictionary<string, Customer> MapToDictionary(IList<Customer> customers)

Then here you can just loop through it. Not too bad, you can always cache it in a Session or Application object. Another option is just to use the List.Find method if you are looking for one object it should be faster actually.

Here's an example, you would use Find instead of Exists but the logic is the same:

if (!((List<AppSection>)Navigation).Exists(
appSection => Server.MapPath(pathToken + appSection.RelativePath) == requestedFilePath))
{
throw new AuthorizationFailure(_user, requestedUrl, "User does not have access to requested page.");
}

Notice I'm casting my IList to a List so that I can use the Exists method, you would do the same for the Find method.