NoRM: Another .NET Provider for MongoDB

Posted by Abel Avram on Jul 10, 2010

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Architecture & Design,

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.NET ,

NoSQL ,

Data Access

NoRM is a .NET library acting as a wrapper around MongoDB, facilitating .NET programming against the mentioned document database. Some of the features are: strongly-typed interface, supporting LINQ, supporting both .NET and Mono.

The main features of the provider are:

• Providing a strongly-typed interface to MongoDB
• Supporting most common MongoDB commands
• Supporting LINQ-to-MongoDB
• Compatible with .NET and Mono
• BSON to .NET CLR types back and forth serialization; BSON is the binary-encoded serialization of JSON documents that MongoDB is using

An example of using NoRM (taken from the wiki):

//connString is a URI to the database with the credentials you need.
var coll = (new Mongo(connString)).GetCollection<Product>();
//create a new object to be added to the collection
var obj = new Product();
obj._id = ObjectId.NewObjectID();
obj.Title = "Shoes";
//save the object
coll.Insert(obj);
//find the object
var obj2 = coll.FindOne(new { _id = obj._id}).First();

Another .NET provider for MongoDB is MongoDB-CSharp. According to its author, Steve Wagner, MongoDB-CSharp has been tested on .NET/Windows and Mono 2.0/Ubuntu.

Raven DB, another document database specifically targeting .NET, has been covered by InfoQ when it was released. Unlike MongoDB which is licensed under GNU AGPL v3.0, Raven DB has a free license for open source projects and a paid license for commercial projects.

1. Back to top

   Disagreed!

   by N C

   I don't think it's fair to say NoRM is "strongly typed" and "supporting LINQ to MongoDB".
   
   var obj2 = coll.FindOne(new { _id = obj._id}).First();
   
   The '_id' is an annoymous type, and really offers nothing over doing something like:
   
   var obj2 = coll.FindOne().AddCriteria("_id", obj._id);
   
   It would support linq if it was written like:
   
   var obj2 = coll.FindOne(x => _x._id = obj._id).First();

   Reply

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   Reporting

   by Sam Corder

   This article doesn't meet the standards of InfoQ's reporting. It lacks depth or breadth and is not well researched.

   Reply

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   Re: Disagreed!

   by darren kopp

   It actually does support linq, the author just didn't show it.
   
   github.com/atheken/NoRM/tree/master/NoRM.Tests/...

   Reply

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   Re: Disagreed!

   by N C

   Ah! Thanks for that. I didn't bother investigating since the article didn't go into depth. Didn't see any reason for using this over Simple MongoDB.

   Reply

5. Back to top

   Re: Reporting

   by Abel Avram

   Sam, there is not much to be said about NoRM. It is just a wrapper. What kind of information did you want to get about it?

   Reply

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