In many cases, you'll want to include building or updating your database in some larger process, such as a build script or installation process. In this recipe, we'll show you how to use this command-line tool to run our hbm2ddl
tasks.
Download the latest release of NHibernate Schema Tool from http://nst.codeplex.com/.
To install NHibernate Schema Tool, follow these steps:
Create a new folder in
C:\Program Files
namedNHibernateSchemaTool
.Copy
nst.exe
to the newly created folder.Add
C:\Program Files\NHibernateSchemaTool
to yourPATH
environment variable.Complete the Configuring NHibernate with hibernate.cfg.xml recipe from the beginning of this chapter.
We haven't added any HBM mapping files to the Eg.Core
project yet, so no tables will be created. In the next chapter, however, we will go into some depth on how these mappings are created.
NHibernate Schema Tool is a command-line wrapper for the hbm2ddl
tool. This makes NST ideal for use in build scripts and continuous integration servers.
The /c
argument specifies the configuration file. The /a
argument specifies the assembly with our classes and mapping embedded resource files. The /o:Create
option tells NHibernate to create our database objects. It also supports Update
and Delete
.
NST has several options, enabling a number of creative uses. NST supports these command-line options: