Ormlite: Setting model attributes in c# no longer works - ormlite-servicestack

Question

I like to keep my data models clean (and not dependent on any Servicestack DLLs) by defining any attributes just in the database layer. However since upgrading to ver 5.0, my application fails to correctly recognise attributes set in c# using AddAttributes().
The code below shows a minimal reproducable example.
using ServiceStack;
using ServiceStack.DataAnnotations;
using ServiceStack.OrmLite;
namespace OrmliteAttributeTest
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
var type = typeof(DataItem2);
type.AddAttributes(new AliasAttribute("DataItem2Table"));
var prop = type.GetProperty(nameof(DataItem2.ItemKey));
if (prop != null)
prop.AddAttributes(new PrimaryKeyAttribute());
prop = type.GetProperty(nameof(DataItem2.ItemDescription));
if (prop != null)
prop.AddAttributes(new StringLengthAttribute(100));
SqlServerDialect.Provider.GetStringConverter().UseUnicode = true;
var connectionString = #"Data Source=localhost\sqlexpress; Initial Catalog=OrmLiteTest; Integrated Security=True;";
var connectionFactory = new OrmLiteConnectionFactory(connectionString, SqlServerDialect.Provider);
using (var db = connectionFactory.OpenDbConnection())
{
db.CreateTableIfNotExists<DataItem>();
db.CreateTableIfNotExists<DataItem2>();
}
}
}
[Alias("DataItemTable")]
public class DataItem
{
[PrimaryKey]
public int ItemKey { get; set; }
[StringLength(100)]
public string ItemDescription { get; set; }
}
public class DataItem2
{
public int ItemKey { get; set; }
public string ItemDescription { get; set; }
}
}
The table for DataItem is created correctly using the attributes as specified. The table for DataItem2 fails to use any of the attibubes defined in the code.

Answer 1

The issue is that the static constructor of JsConfig.InitStatics() needs to be initialized once on Startup which reinitializes the static configuration (and dynamic attributes added) in ServiceStack Serializers.
This is implicitly called in ServiceStack libraries like OrmLiteConnectionFactory which because it hasn't been called before will reinitialize that ServiceStack.Text static configuration. To avoid resetting the dynamic attributes you can initialize the OrmLiteConnectionFactory before adding the attributes:
var connectionFactory = new OrmLiteConnectionFactory(connStr, SqlServerDialect.Provider);
var type = typeof(DataItem2);
type.AddAttributes(new AliasAttribute("DataItem2Table"));
var prop = type.GetProperty(nameof(DataItem2.ItemKey));
if (prop != null)
prop.AddAttributes(new PrimaryKeyAttribute());
prop = type.GetProperty(nameof(DataItem2.ItemDescription));
if (prop != null)
prop.AddAttributes(new StringLengthAttribute(100));
SqlServerDialect.Provider.GetStringConverter().UseUnicode = true;
Or if preferred you can explicitly call InitStatics() before adding any attributes, e.g:
JsConfig.InitStatics();
var type = typeof(DataItem2);
type.AddAttributes(new AliasAttribute("DataItem2Table"));
//...