I have an XML file which roughly describes a database schema I am inheriting
I want to generate POCO objects for this file to give me a head start with the business objects in my C# application.
Is this possible and how?
You could (and should) define a xsd which describes your XML file. From this XSD you can generate classes using xsd.exe.
If you need more control over your code generation (e.g. you aren't happy with the output of xsd.exe, want to add attributes, make changes, ...) you can use System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSchemaImporter, System.Xml.Serialization.XmlCodeExporter and CodeDom to adjust the generated code.
Yes,it can be done. Take a look at T4 text templetes
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/T4TextTemplateTransformationToolkitCodeGenerationBestKeptVisualStudioSecret.aspx
Try SimpleXmlToCode .It does not require an XSD or anything. It generates good serializable code instantly.
Best of all, it's opensource.
Related
I am trying develop a website which provide user interface to generate XML file. The user interface will ask for data required in various XML elements. The generate XML should follow DTD specifications.
So here is what I did.
I converted DTD to XSD.
I created C# class using xsd.exe tool.
Now my question is how can I generate dynamic input boxes on the webpage that will ask for required element data from the C# class I created.
I need some way to know the required and optional elements and their data type and attribute and all from the C# class I created.
i hope you get what i am asking, thanks for looking.
Keep in mind that most of the required/optional semantics from the xsd are lost in the classes generated with xsd.exe. You basically have 2 (+1 edited later ) options:
Use reflection over your generated types to render UI elements for each property. You'll have to manually manage/define databindings
Drop the xsd.exe classes and generate your UI elements by traversing the xsd itself. That way you get way more info about optional/nullable elements, cardinality etc. Construct your resulting xml by hand (use XDocument) from your UI inputs.
The hybrid approach: Reflect over generated classes for structure (easier traversal logic. no need to handle external includes etc). Go to the xsd for the additional info (You'll need to somehow figure out where in the xsd to find your needed definitions that map to the current property)
Either way you choose this will not be a trivial task and you'll need a lot of work to make it happen. And if we're going in the realm of XSD choice elements etc. you'll soon figure out that no straight forward UI can cover all the possible scenarios
I've been given the task of writing a complex XML file (I do have the XML schema, XSD) in C#, which has the possibility of being quite large depending on the situation. I'd like to implement streaming since the file can be large, so it looks like the best option is to use the XMLWriter. Before I go down the path of extending the XMLWriter class and writing a bunch of custom code, I was wondering if it was possible to, somehow, leverage the XML schema I have? I know I can convert my schema to C# objects using the XML Schema Definition Tool in Visual Studio, but I don't know if this is something I can use with the XMLWriter. I've converted an XML schema to C# objects and serialized them using XMLSerializer in the past, but not with the XMLWriter.
See Generating XML Documents from XML Schemas
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa302296.aspx
Summary: Priya Lakshminarayanan shows how you can use the classes in the System.XML.Schema namespace of the Microsoft .NET Framework to build a tool that generates sample XML documents that conform to a given schema.
In the Visual Studio Schema Explorer you are able to generate an instance document from any element definition in your Schema. This article exposes the underlying code that makes that happen. I should note that Altova's XMLSpy has a more flexible tool for generating instances from the Schema, allowing you to set various parameters about the depth, repetition, and generated text values.
I used the XMLGenerator code included in the article to create a class that generates new XML document instances from my Schema for the 20 types of documents that we define. I added hints in my Schema as attributes in my own namespace to help the XMLGenerator generate a minimal valid document with some default text to help the users get started with the new document. So there is a lot you can do with the XmlGenerator.
i have a peice of code that outputs many different XML files using the DataContractSerializer
i would like to be able to output an XSL and XSD along with each one.
this is purely for learning purposes.
Also I have not included any code as i think it is a fairly generic question.
the only way i have found to do this so far is by using the svcutil.exe.
Is the datacontractserialiser able to do this at runtime?
(or is my understanding of the XSD and XSL incorrect?)
Having done a bit more reading i understand that the XSL needs to be defined for the XML not along with it and is something that needs to be done by me manually.
Edit: I have the Svcutil working i was however wondering if it was possible to do this in code. (ultimately i would like to place a copy of the XSD in the same place as the XML file)
You can extract the XSD from the DataContract using svcutil.exe
svcutil.exe /dataContractOnly *.dll
Docu:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa702581.aspx
Edit:
To do this at runtime use the XsdDataContractExporter
assume this - I want to read and write XML in a predefined scheme - till now it's ok.
The thing is that there is explicit action a developer needs to do case he wants to add another attribute (xsd.exe for example) and it's quite frustrating in teerms of source control (need to check out, generate new file, and check that in).
Is there a way to read xml just by supplying its XSD (without the need to actually auto-generate a class for that?) - in that case if new field will introduce - developer will change only the XSD or something?
Please check the below link,
This can be the solution for this problem.
But please keep in mind that using xsd.exe is robust way to generate the classes for schema.
You can generate the class code form xsd on the fly and you can compile the code and use in your application
How to programmaticly generate .NET classes from XSD? (Like xsd.exe do)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.xml.serialization.xmlcodeexporter
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/650ax5cx.aspx
I am trying to generate C# classes from the following XSD file.
I run xsd.exe with the options to generate C# classes. Ideally I would like to create an ORM from the XSD (and thus generate the DDL from the schema file), but I am not sure if XSD.exe is the way to go forward.
In any event, this is what I want to do (in decreasing order of urgency)
Create classes from the XSD file
Provide CRUD functionality (active record pattern) via an (autogenerated?) ORM
Autogenerate DDL from the XSD and populate the db with the permitted values specified in the XSD.
For the last one, I suspect that I may have to hack something together using XSLT.
Starting with the first problem, I run xsd.exe like this:
xsd mddl.xsd /c /eld /o: c:\some\folder
The output from running the above command is:
- Group 'mathNode.model' from targetNamespace='http://www.mddl.org/mddl/3.0-beta' has invalid definition: Circular group reference.
Now I am new to XML/XSD etc - so I am currently stuck on how to resolve this. Can someone spot why the Circular reference is being caused - and more importantly, how to fix it?
You may have already seen this; it complains of the same issue, and the answers suggest hand-creating the classes to handle the serialization. Doesn't seem like a great thing to me, but there you go.
I'm running into the same problem with a schema we've been given, and researching other tools that might be able to handle this. There's conflicting information as to whether this is actually valid from an XML Schema standpoint; most people think that it is (though MS disagrees: link).