ADO.NET 3.5 Cookbook, 2nd Edition

9.2. Using XSD Schema Files to Save and Load a DataSet Structure

Problem

You need to create an XSD schema from a DataSet or DataTable and to define the schema of a DataSet or DataTable from an XSD schema.

Solution

Use the XmlTextWriter and XmlTextReader classes together with the WriteXmlSchema() and ReadXmlSchema() methods of the DataSet and DataTable classes.

The solution creates a DataSet containing the schema and data for the Sales.SalesOrderHeader and Sales.SalesOrderDetail tables in AdventureWorks. A data relation for the tables is created in the DataSet. The XML schema for the DataSet is written to a file named Schema.xsd in the same directory as the solution file LoadSaveDataSetXsdSchema.sln. Next, the solution creates a DataSet and reads in schema from the XML file Schema.xsd. Finally, metadata about the DataSet schema are written to the console.

The C# code in Program.cs in the project LoadSaveDataSetXsdSchema is shown in Example 9-3.

Example 9-3. File: Program.cs for LoadSaveDataSetXsdSchema solution

using System; using System.Data; using System.Data.SqlClient; using System.IO; using System.Xml; using System.Text; namespace LoadSaveDataSetXsdSchema { class Program { private const string fileName = @"..\..\..\Schema.xsd"; static void Main(string[] args) { string sqlConnectString = "Data Source=(local);" + "Integrated security=SSPI;Initial Catalog=AdventureWorks;"; string sqlSelect = "SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderHeader;" + "SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail"; DataSet dsSource ...