If you have read my previous post . I have talk about how ORM can create mess with the application. And prior to that I have write that it speed up the production like anything.

So, Am I contradicting my self ???

No, I am just learning new things. I am using ORM but now I am more careful while using it. That’s it.

So, why Vietnam ???

My post is originally inspired by Ted Neward’s blog about ORM . And after effect of that blog in the blog of Jeff Atwood.  This two blogs nailed the ORM like anything. So, now we have two things ORM is good to increase productivity but bad when it comes to performance. And this gives the birth to Micro ORM.

As, I remember one of the first Micro ORM is Dapper from the team of Stackoverflow . And parallel we have Massive from Rob Conery . Dapper comes because traditional ORM burned the server of Stackoverflow by continuously using 100% of CPU. This happens because of heavy access and complex queries generated by ORM . As per them after that; they  rewrite the database access of application, remove ORM and use Dapper . And then after they open source it. And this is the only ORM which has better performance just after direct data access to data base. And Massive , it just developed because Rob Conery is one of kind of genius person who just like want one more open source project under his belt.

There are few others

Obviously Dapper is fastest as per the benchmark available over their site. But I like Massive the most. And other than that OrmLite is also quite good. I first like to talk about OrmLite and will talk about Massive in my next post.

Now, OrmLite is a wrapper around System.Data namespace.And may be this is the only ORM with table creation support. So, it do support code first development. It do give me feeling of ORM without losing performance. So, now we dig into OrmLite .

If you have worked with classic data access you must have remember data connection class and data command class. Then there is a string variable for Query and data command has that command text and command type. In that we pass details as parameter to save our self from SQL injection. Good old days. I don’t like this type of fuss that much, and every now and then check over then connection. Writing query in database and then again in code.

This is the ORM which solves most of the problem.  Here, I will explain how ??? I am using most of the example from its site only. So, if you like to skip the topic here. You can, but I think if you like the above part you will like the rest too. By the way here is the link of OrmLite .

First and best thing of OrmLite is, it creates table. Though it provide only one to one mapping with database but still it CAN creates the TABLES. I am not just big fan of creating table with query. And after writing things on paper, you find very rare occasion where you need to write query for creating table. And also I am more of C# guy, even when I have started the journey of ORM , with LINQ to SQL and Entity Framework, I go with reverse mapping. But after that Entity Framework Code First enters. That is awesome for creating tables for you. So, you can concentrate on core logic. But again it is Entity Framework so !!!

Here, is the sample of it. You can start with making POCO classes without worrying about your database.

public enum PhoneType { Home, Work, Mobile, } public enum AddressType { Home, Work, Other, } public class Address { public string Line1 { get; set; } public string Line2 { get; set; } public string ZipCode { get; set; } public string State { get; set; } public string City { get; set; } public string Country { get; set; } } public class Customer { public Customer() { this.PhoneNumbers = new Dictionary <PhoneType, string>(); this.Addresses = new Dictionary <AddressType, Address>(); }

[AutoIncrement]
public int Id { get; set; }

public string FirstName { get; set; }
public string LastName { get; set; }

[Index(Unique = true)]
public string Email { get; set; }

public Dictionary <PhoneType, string> PhoneNumbers { get; set; }
public Dictionary <AddressType, Address> Addresses { get; set; }
public DateTime CreatedAt { get; set; }

}

Again this supports all the data annotation from .net 4.0. Here is the example of it.

public class Order {

[AutoIncrement]
public int Id { get; set; }

[References(typeof(Customer))]
public int CustomerId { get; set; }

[References(typeof(Employee))]
public int EmployeeId { get; set; }

[StringLenght(256)]
public string ShippingAddress { get; set; }

public DateTime? OrderDate { get; set; }
public DateTime? RequiredDate { get; set; }
public DateTime? ShippedDate { get; set; }
public int? ShipVia { get; set; }
public decimal Freight { get; set; }
public decimal Total { get; set; }
}

So, it supports required, Max Length and all others. I haven’t check all though.

Now, the CRUD operation. It is easy like anything.

var dbFactory = new OrmLiteConnectionFactory(@"Data Source=.SQLEXPRESS;AttachDbFilename=|DataDirectory|App_DataDatabase1.mdf;Integrated Security=True;User Instance=True",SqlServerOrmLiteDialectProvider.Instance);

Here is the catch. I was unable to find property to set Dialect provider. After initiating default blank constructor. But you can always go with this default example. Then, one just need to remember that old days of connection creation and command creation and just fire up the command. But, this is ORM . Things must be easy here. And yes, it is damn easy.

I have never seen this much classic use of extension method before. OrmLite extend the functionality of default class and make our work easy like anything. Here, is the example


    //Non-intrusive: All extension methods hang off System.Data.* interfaces
    IDbConnection dbConn = dbFactory.OpenDbConnection()
    IDbCommand dbCmd = dbConn.CreateCommand()

    //Re-Create all table schemas:
    dbCmd.DropTable <OrderDetail>()
    dbCmd.DropTable <Order>()
    dbCmd.DropTable <Customer>()
    dbCmd.DropTable <Product>()
    dbCmd.DropTable <Employee>()

    dbCmd.CreateTable <Employee>()
    dbCmd.CreateTable <Product>()
    dbCmd.CreateTable <Customer>()
    dbCmd.CreateTable <Order>()
    dbCmd.CreateTable <OrderDetail>()

    dbCmd.Insert(new Employee { Id = 1, Name = "Employee 1" })
    dbCmd.Insert(new Employee { Id = 2, Name = "Employee 2" })
    var product1 = new Product { Id = 1, Name = "Product 1", UnitPrice = 10 }
    var product2 = new Product { Id = 2, Name = "Product 2", UnitPrice = 20 }
    dbCmd.Save(product1, product2)

    var customer = new Customer
    {
      FirstName = "Orm",
      LastName = "Lite",
      Email = "ormlite@servicestack.net",
      PhoneNumbers =
      {
        { PhoneType.Home, "555-1234" },
        { PhoneType.Work, "1-800-1234" },
        { PhoneType.Mobile, "818-123-4567" },
      },
      Addresses =
      {
        { AddressType.Work,
        new Address
          { Line1 = "1 Street", Country = "US", State = "NY", City = "New York", ZipCode = "10101" }
          },
        },
        CreatedAt = DateTime.UtcNow,
      }
    dbCmd.Insert(customer)

    var customerId = dbCmd.GetLastInsertId()
    customer = dbCmd.QuerySingle &lt;Customer&gt;(new { customer.Email })
    Assert.That(customer.Id, Is.EqualTo(customerId))

    //Direct access to System.Data.Transactions:
    using (var trans = dbCmd.BeginTransaction(IsolationLevel.ReadCommitted))
    {
      var order = new Order
    {
    CustomerId = customer.Id,
    EmployeeId = 1,
    OrderDate = DateTime.UtcNow,
    Freight = 10.50m,
    ShippingAddress = new Address { Line1 = "3 Street", Country = "US", State = "NY", City = "New York", ZipCode = "12121" },
    }
    dbCmd.Save(order)

    order.Id = (int)dbCmd.GetLastInsertId()

    var orderDetails = new[] {
      new OrderDetail
      {
        OrderId = order.Id,
        ProductId = product1.Id,
        Quantity = 2,
        UnitPrice = product1.UnitPrice,
      },
      new OrderDetail
      {
        OrderId = order.Id,
        ProductId = product2.Id,
        Quantity = 2,
        UnitPrice = product2.UnitPrice,
        Discount = .15m,
      }
    }

    dbCmd.Insert(orderDetails)

    order.Total = orderDetails.Sum(x => x.UnitPrice * x.Quantity * x.Discount) +  order.Freight

    dbCmd.Save(order)

    trans.Commit()
    }

So, As you can see. It supports mighty POCO and handles almost everything. If you have a question, this can be done by Entity Framework too. And even in pretty nicer way. Then here is the answer, benchmark . Speed, performance, scalability it is the thing which makes the difference.

Now, anyone can write a code. I definitely don’t mind that. But there are few who really write good code. And please I am not saying about following standards of casing but saying about trimming things up, take bold decision and follow rules of Martin Flower .