[hibernate-dev] Building a SessionFactory

I think this new API for creating a SessionFactory is starting to firm up, so I wanted to put out another call for feedback before we get too close to Alpha3. So at a high level there are 2 pieces of information needed to build the SessionFactory: the ServiceRegistry and the Metadata. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The ServiceRegistry is built through a ServiceRegistryBuilder (this is a slight recent change) Map config = ...; ServiceRegistry serviceRegistry = new ServiceRegistryBuilder( config ) ... .buildServiceRegistry(); The "..." allows you to add service instances and service initiators. Currently any (map of) configuration values is passed in the constructor. I can be convinced to allow adding/setting of config values as well, if everyone has a preference for that approach: Map config = ...; ServiceRegistry serviceRegistry = new ServiceRegistryBuilder() .setConfigurationData( config ) .setOption( Environment.SHOW_SQL, true ) ... .buildServiceRegistry(); Not sure the best method names there, to be honest which is why I opted for passing them to ctor. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Metadata is built through a MetadataSources which represents the sources of metadata information. MetadataSources metadataSources = new MetadataSources( serviceRegistry ) .addResource( "some.hbm.xml" ) .addAnnotatedClass( SomeEntity.class ); Metadata metadata = metadataSources.buildMetadata(); ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Metadata is then used to obtain a SessionFactory. SessionFactory sf = metadata.buildSessionFactory(); Metadata represents the "configuration time" mapping information. As of now we will allow users to manipulate and otherwise access this information, hence the seeming "intermediate step". These all work with chaining: SessionFactory sf = new MetadataSources( serviceRegistry ) .addResource( "some.hbm.xml" ) .addAnnotatedClass( SomeEntity.class ) .buildMetadata() .buildSessionFactory(); -- Steve Ebersole <steve(a)hibernate.org&gt; http://hibernate.org