I am trying out some cascade options with nhibernate mapping and have a unit test where I'd like to use a tool to inspect the state of the database. I was hoping I could use linqpad to do this, but the connection seems hung while in the debugger. I'd seen a demo not to long ago where SSMS was being used to inspect the db during a debug, so I'm wondering if I should be able to somehow use linqpad or if I need a different tool (I haven't installed SSMS on my laptop and would prefer something more light weight).

Unrelated to linqpad, my motivation for doing this is I am not sure if the db state I'm validating in a unit test is from the db or from nhibernate's cache? If Session.Flush() is called before the the assert, does that mean a fetch in an assert is guaranteed to be coming from the db?

Cheers,
Berryl