R – How to save a new object using NHibernate when it already has an ID

You are getting the first error because, when you remove the items from the collection, NHibernate's default mode of operation is to simply break the association. In the database, NHibernate tries to set the foreign key column on the child row to null. Since you do not allow nulls in that column, SQL Server raises the error. Clearing the collection will not necessarily delete the child object, but one way to do so is to set cascade=all-delete-orphan. This informs NHibernate that it should delete the newly orphaned rows instead of setting the foreign key column.

You are getting the second error because when you call SaveOrUpdate NHibernate first deletes all of the child objects. Then, because neither relationship is marked as inverse, NHibernate also tries to set the foreign key column in your child table to null. Since the rows have already been deleted, you receive the second error. You need to set inverse=true on one side of your relationship to fix this. This is usually done on the one (primary key or parent) side. If you do not do this, NHibernate will make the appropriate updates for each side of the relationship. Unfortunately, running two updates is not the appropriate thing to do.

You should always mark one side of your relationships as the inverse side. Depending on how you code, you may or may not need to use cascading. If you want to take advantage of one shot deletes as you are trying to do using Clear(), you need to define your cascade.

Interceptors can do this:

http://www.nhforge.org/doc/nh/en/index.html#manipulatingdata-interceptors (9.10, link doesn't always work).

Cut/paste from the document:

public class AuditInterceptor : IInterceptor
{
    ...

    public boolean OnSave(object entity,
                          object id,
                          object[] state,
                          string[] propertyNames,
                          IType[] types)
    {
        if ( entity is IAuditable )
        {
            for ( int i=0; i<propertyNames.Length; i++ )
            {
                if ( "CreateTimestamp" == propertyNames[i] )
                {
                    state[i] = DateTime.Now;
                    return true;
                }
            }
        }
        return false;
    }

}

OnFlushDirty() could be used for UpdatedDate.

You are going to want every entity that has a CreatedDate/UpdatedDate to implement an interface so that the interceptor can check whether it should act (in the provided example it is IAuditable).

Edit

Just noticed chapter 11: Interceptors and events. You can inherit from EmptyInterceptor which makes things easier if you only need to override some of the methods.

I've never used Events.