I wanted to create a simple app to store data using the elegant OrmList from ServiceStack.  During this process I found a couple of things that cost me some time and I wanted to share these with you.  In this article I will walk through creating a small and simple ServiceStack OrmLite example.  It should take around 5 minutes to complete the example.

Please see the excellent OrmLite official docs for more examples.

Update Jan 6, 2013:  Code samples updated with the great feedback in the comments from Demis Bellot.

Step 1:  Create a Console App and Reference OrmLite.SQLite

– Create a Console app named OrmLiteExample

– Add the OrmLite references from NuGet (http://www.nuget.org).  Right-click on the References in the Solution Explorer, Manage NuGet Packages, Online, OrmLite.  Or, from the Package Manager Console (View, Other Windows, Package Manager Console) type ‘Install-Package ServiceStack.OrmLite.Sqlite32’.

Step 2:  Create the DTO (aka Model)

This is the nicest part of working with ServiceStack.  Everything is DTO and Model driven – no config files to create and the code is simple and concise.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using ServiceStack.DataAnnotations;

namespace OrmLiteExample
{
    class Note
    {
        [AutoIncrement] // Creates Auto primary key
        public int Id { get; set; }

        public string SchemaUri { get; set; }
        public string NoteText { get; set; }
        public DateTime? LastUpdated { get; set; }
        public string UpdatedBy { get; set; }
    }
}

Step 3:  In program.cs, add the Using statements

using ServiceStack.OrmLite;
using ServiceStack.OrmLite.Sqlite;

The using statement ServiceStack.OrmLite.Sqlite will throw an exception if you build now.

Fix:  With NuGet, download and install ServiceStack.OrmLite.Sqlite32 package. Also, go to the properties of your project and make sure the target framework is set to .NET framework 4.  Solved!

Step 4:  Add the connection strings for SqLite

Thanks to the nice Unit Tests in the ServiceStack project I was able to use their example.

public static string SqliteMemoryDb = ":memory:";
// Updated per comment form Jonas.  First connection string below causes an app pool restart!  Use MapHostAbsolutePath instead!
//public static string SqliteFileDb = "~/App_Data/db.sqlite".MapAbsolutePath();  
public static string SqliteFileDb = "~/App_Data/db.sqlite".MapHostAbsolutePath();

using ServiceStack.Common.Utils;

Step 5:  Create the connection

//Using Sqlite DB- improved

var dbFactory = new OrmLiteConnectionFactory(
                SqliteFileDb, false, SqliteDialect.Provider);

// Wrap all code in using statement to not forget about using db.Close()
using (var db = dbFactory.Open()) {

Step 6: Create the Table

db.CreateTableIfNotExists<Note>();

Step 7:  Insert a record

Note:  This is different than the excellent online examples.  I received a warning message to use the Connection instead of the Command object.

// Insert
db.Insert(
	new Note {
		SchemaUri = "tcm:0-0-0",
		NoteText = "Hello world 5",
		LastUpdated = new DateTime(2013, 1, 5),
		UpdatedBy = "RC" });

Step 8:  Read the data

 // Read
var notes = db.Where<Note>(new { SchemaUri = "tcm:0-0-0" });
foreach (Note note in notes)
{
	Console.WriteLine("note id=" + note.Id + "noteText=" + note.NoteText);
}
Console.ReadLine();

Full Code

Program.cs

Note.cs