ADO.NET in a Nutshell

Annotations

By default, strongly typed DataSet classes use names from the underlying tables and columns in the data source to generate the names of methods, properties, and events. Annotations allow the names of elements in the typed DataSet to be changed without modifying the underlying schema. The names can be made more meaningful, making the strongly typed DataSet easier to use and the code using it more readable.

To use annotations, the codegen namespace declaration must be added to the XSD file. This can be placed directly after the msdata namespace declaration at the beginning of the file:

<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?>

<xs:schema id="NewDataSet" xmlns="" 

    xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"

    xmlns:msdata="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xml-msdata"

    xmlns:codegen="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xml-msprop">

Annotations can be used to change the names of elements in the strongly typed DataSet. Using the Categories table in Northwind as an example, the default schema results in a DataRow name of CategoriesRow and a DataRowCollection name of Categories in the strongly typed DataSet. Here’s an excerpt from the default schema:

<xs:element name="Categories">

Specifying the typedName and the typedPlural in the schema element changes the name of the DataRow to Category and the name of the DataRowCollection to Categorys. Here’s the new XSD schema:

<xs:element name="Categories"

    codegen:typedName="Category" codegen:typedPlural="Categorys">

Annotations can also change the names of methods ...