In this post, I’ll outline some basics on QueryOver, including the NHibernate types involved and basic query structure. I’ll also talk about joining using JoinAlias and JoinQueryOver

This article is part of an ongoing series on NHibernate Queryover. Click here to see the table of contents.

IQueryOver<TRoot, TSubType>

If you look closely at the types involved when writing QueryOver queries, you’ll notice that there are two generic type parameters: TRoot and TSubType. Why would the API need two type parameters?

When you create a QueryOver object using session.QueryOver<TRoot>, TRoot and TSubType are the same. TRoot stays the same as you build the query, and TSubType changes as you use JoinQueryOver to join to other tables. This is worth mentioning before we go into more depth on building queries.

In general:

  • Operations except for .Select use TSubType as the type parameter for lambda expressions you pass to QueryOver methods
  • TRoot is the type parameter for lambda expressions you use in the .Select step of the query.

Here’s an example:

session.QueryOver<Person>()
// TRoot and TSubType are Person                         
    .JoinQueryOver(p => p.Addresses)
    // TRoot is Person, TSubtype is Address
        .Where(a => a.ModifiedDate == DateTime.Now)
        // Where accepts an Expression<Func<TSubtype, bool>>
        .Select(p => p.Id);
        // Select accepts an Expression<Func<TRoot, object>>

JoinAlias and JoinQueryOver

Since we’re on the subject of TRoot and TSubType, now is a good opportunity to talk about JoinAlias and JoinQueryOver

JoinAlias

JoinAlias adds a join to your query without changing TSubType. This is useful if you’re joining to more than one table from a source table:

BusinessEntityAddress addressAlias = null;
BusinessEntityContact contactAlias = null;

session.QueryOver<Person>()
    .JoinAlias(p => p.Addresses, () => addressAlias)
    .JoinAlias(p => p.Contacts, () => contactAlias)
    .Where(p => p.FirstName == "Andrew")
    /* etc */

In this example, since we want to join to Address and Contact, we can use JoinAlias twice, since TSubType doesn’t change.

The second parameter (in this particular overload) to .JoinAlias is a lambda expression that creates an alias. You can use the alias throughout the query in other lambda expressions when you don’t want to use either TRoot or TSubType.

JoinQueryOver

JoinQueryOver adds a join to your query and changes TSubType. You can also use an alias with JoinQueryOver, but with simpler queries it’s often not necessary:

session.QueryOver<Person>()
    .JoinQueryOver(p => p.Addresses)
        .Where(a => a.ModifiedDate == DateTime.Now)
    .Select(p => p.FirstName)

Notice that the lambda expression passed to the .Where method has the signature Expression<Func<Address, bool>>. The call to JoinQueryOver changed TSubType. This can make for more concise, easier to read code, since you don’t need to declare aliases for every join you do.

JoinAlias and JoinQueryOver are interchangeable, as far as I know. You can write the same query using either one, it’s just that the number of aliases you declare changes based on which you use. Typically I choose whichever one avoids creating and managing more aliases. This means using JoinQueryOver when possible, but that’s personal preference.

Summary:

  • IQueryOver is a generic type with two type parameters TRoot and TSubType
  • .Select operates on TRoot while other QueryOver methods operate on TSubType.
  • TRoot stays the same as you’re building a query, but TSubType changes when you join using JoinQueryOver
  • JoinQueryOver and JoinAlias add joins to your query. JoinAlias doesn’t change TSubType, but JoinQueryOver does.
  • You can use aliases when building a query to refer to properties that don’t belong to TRoot or TSubType