ORMTool

ORMTool is a hypothetical open-source object-relational mapping library designed to illustrate common patterns in database-to-object mapping. It provides a programmatic interface to map relational tables to domain objects, enabling developers to perform create, read, update, and delete operations without writing SQL directly. The project emphasizes portability across languages and databases and aims for predictable, testable behavior.

Architecture: ORMTool uses a metadata-driven mapping layer in which entity classes are annotated or configured with mappings for tables, columns, and relationships. It implements a unit-of-work pattern to batch changes and a session or context object to manage persistence. The query API supports fluent or language-integrated querying and can fall back to raw SQL when needed. Features such as lazy loading, eager loading, and change tracking are provided, along with transaction management and connection pooling.

Features and workflows: supports code-first and database-first workflows, schema migrations, and seeding of initial data. It provides relationship management for one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many associations, with cascading options and constraint handling. It includes debugging and profiling aids, as well as built-in dialect adapters for several relational engines.

Language and platform support: in the hypothetical project, bindings exist for Java, C#, Python, and JavaScript, with adapters for PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, and SQL Server. Licensing is typically permissive for community use.

Reception and status: ORMTool is commonly discussed in educational contexts as a representative design for ORMs, used to illustrate unit-of-work, repositories, and mapping metadata. In real-world usage, adoption depends on ecosystem maturity, documentation, and community support. The project is maintained by volunteers and aims to improve compatibility and performance while remaining approachable for learners.

See also: Object-relational mapping, Active Record, Data mapper.