NHibernate creates proxy via session.Load(), but not via Linq or Criteria API

Question

I have an odd problem in my current project. Lazy loading for queries does not work. When I query a list, nhibernate fetches all associations separately.

I extracted small parts of it and put it into a separate solution. Basically what I've got now, is a Account-Table and a AccountSync-Table. Both have an ID and a URL, while the ID is just a db-guid.

My classes are:

public class HippoAccount
{
    public virtual Guid Id { get; set; }
    public virtual string Url { get; set; }
    public virtual HippoAccountSync Sync { get; set; }
}

public class HippoAccountSync
{
    public virtual Guid Id { get; set; }

    public virtual string Url { get; set; }
    public virtual HippoAccount Account { get; set; }
}

When I now load a object via it's guid:

var account = session.Load<HippoAccount>(accountId);
Console.WriteLine(NHibernateUtil.IsPropertyInitialized(account, "Sync"))

... it returns false and account itself is a proxy.

But when loading a list via the criteria API:

var account = (HippoAccount)session
    .CreateCriteria(typeof (HippoAccount))
    .Add(Restrictions.Eq("Id", accountId))
    .List()[0];

... the property Sync gets initialized (firing a second select query), and the returned object is not a proxy.

Is that default behaviour? What am I getting wrong?

The mapping is:

<class name="HippoAccount" table="AllAccounts">
  <id name="Id" type="guid">
    <generator class="guid"/>
  </id>
  <property name="Url" />

  <many-to-one 
           class="HippoAccountSync"
           name="Sync"
           not-found="ignore"
           property-ref="Url">
    <column name="url" />
  </many-to-one>
</class>

<class name="HippoAccountSync"
       mutable="false"
       table="Accounts">

  <id name="Id" type="guid">
    <generator class="guid"/>
  </id>

  <property name="Url">
    <column name="serviceUri" />
  </property>

  <many-to-one class="HippoAccount"
               name="Account"
               property-ref="Url"
               not-found="ignore">

    <column name="serviceUri" />
  </many-to-one>

</class>

Answer 1

After quite some more research, I found the answers. Answers, because there are many things that can prevent lazy loading in NHibernate.

1. Query vs. session.Load: When fetching an item via session.Load() you get a proxy. But as soon as you access any property, lets say the Url, the object is fetched including all it's associations that doesn't support lazy loading.

2. property-ref: Lazy loading only works over a objects id. When an property-association is resolved via a different column in the target entity, NH fetches it eagerly. Not that this wouldn't be possible, it's just not implemented: Bug

3. not-found="ignore" allows invalid foreign keys, that is, if the referenced entity isn't found NH will init the property with null. NH doesn't intercept the property-access for lazy loading, but instead assignes a object proxy. With not-found="ignore" it can't decide if the property should be set to null or a proxy for the given, possibly invalid, foreign key. This could possibly be solved by intercepting the property access.

4. When disabling not-found="ignore" and property-ref the schema export would generate constraints that enforce a circular reference. Not good! The correct mapping would then be a constrained one-to-one relationship, where the key for HippoAccountSync must have a generator foreign.

Resources

• Select statement issued for each not-found=ignore
• Lazy-load conflicts with Property-ref in Many-to-One Mapping
• Google groups discussion