Often the primary keys for tables are integer types. One problem can occur when you accidentally use the OrderID when you really meant to use CustomerID. This bug can happen inside the database and it can also arise in your code data layer.

One solution for this at the code level is to create custom types (eg. OrderIdentifier and CustomerIdentifier) so that the compiler will throw an error if you try and assign or compare different types.

The down-side to this is that because Integers are value types, you can’t just inherit from the Integer class. Instead you need to store the actual integer value inside the class and expose it through a property.

eg.

Public Class OrderIdentifier

Private _value As Integer

Public Property Value() As Integer

Get

Return _value

End Get

Set(ByVal Value As Integer)

_value = Value

End Set

End Property

Public Sub New()

End Sub

Public Sub New(ByVal value As Integer)

Me.Value = value

End Sub

End Class

I’ve also noticed that NHibernate doesn’t like having custom types for primary keys, as it tries to use the System.Type.IsAssignableFrom method to see if it can convert an Integer to the OrderIdentifier object (which fails).

I’m not sure that there’s a workaround for that, as I think it would require a class to inherit from the Int32 structure, which isn’t possible.