Question

I’m examin some mapping examples which uses mapping by code, and I have one simple question
If I have two properties which are mapped like this

Property(x => x.UserName, m => 
        {
            m.Length(50);
            m.NotNullable(true);
        });


Property(x => x.UpperUserName, m => 
        {
            m.Length(50);
            m.NotNullable(true);
            m.UniqueKey(“UniqueUpperUserName”);
            m.Access(Accessor.Field);
        });

What this m.Access(Accessor.Field); means?

And why it’s used on these second property UpperUserName and not in the first one?

Thanks.

Answer 1

It means that NHibernate won’t use the property itself when reading and writing values, but the underlying field.

// This will be used
var string upperUserName;

public string UpperUserName
{
    get { return upperUserName; }
    // Maybe this is a read-only property, 
    // so we must allow NHibernate to update the value somehow
    // set { upperUserName = value; }
}

You can read more on available access types in NHibernate documentation. Just scroll down to Access and Naming strategies tables.