9.1 ActiveRecord Integration Facility

Use the ActiveRecord Integration facility if you want to benefit from the transaction management offered by the Automatic Transaction Management Facility and if you want to have the Container configuring the ActiveRecord framework (this keeps the configuration centralized).

The facility does not change in any way how ActiveRecord types are managed, loaded, saved and so on.

Quick start

Just install the facility and add the proper configuration

<configuration>
   <facilities>
      <facility
         id="arfacility"
         type="Castle.Facilities.ActiveRecordIntegration.ActiveRecordFacility, Castle.Facilities.ActiveRecordIntegration"
         isDebug="false"
         isWeb="false">
         <!-- Configure the namespaces for the models using Active Record Intergration -->
         <assemblies>
            <item>Company.Project.Model</item>
         </assemblies>
         <config>
            <add key="hibernate.connection.driver_class"      value="NHibernate.Driver.SqlClientDriver" />
            <add key="hibernate.dialect"                      value="NHibernate.Dialect.MsSql2000Dialect" />
            <add key="hibernate.connection.provider"          value="NHibernate.Connection.DriverConnectionProvider" />
            <add key="hibernate.connection.connection_string" value="Data Source=.;Initial Catalog=appdb;Integrated Security=SSPI" />
         </config>
      </facility>
   </facilities>
</configuration>

The configuration is basically the same as ActiveRecord. The exception is the assemblies node which you use to specify the assembly name that has the ActiveRecord types.

Auto wiring

The facility also adds ISessionFactoryHolder and ISessionFactory as components, so you can gain access to NHibernate's ISession from any component. For example:

public class CustomerService
{
   private readonly ISessionFactory sessionFactory;

   public CustomerService(ISessionFactory sessionFactory)
   {
      this.sessionFactory = sessionFactory;
   }

   public void PerformSomeComplexQuery()
   {
      ISession session = sessionFactory.OpenSession();
      ...
      session.Close();
   }
}

:information_source: OpenSession: You can only invoke OpenSession on the ISessionFactory, and also do not forget to close the Session as it is being managed by ActiveRecord.

Transaction support

This facility is aware of transactions, for more information check Automatic Transaction Management Facility.

Required Assemblies

• Castle.ActiveRecord.dll
• Castle.Services.Transaction.dll
• Castle.Facilities.ActiveRecordIntegration.dll
• Castle.Facilities.AutomaticTransactionManagement.dll