How do I programmatically generate an xml schema from a type?

Question

Hi, I'm trying to generate an xs:schema from any .net Type programmatically. I know I could use reflection and generate it by iterating over the public properties, but is there a built in way?

Example:

[Serializable]
public class Person
{
    [XmlElement(IsNullable = false)] public string FirstName { get; set; }
    [XmlElement(IsNullable = false)] public string LastName { get; set; }
    [XmlElement(IsNullable = true)] public string PhoneNo { get; set; }
}

Desired Output:

<xs:schema xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"&gt;
  <xs:element name="Person" type="Person" />
  <xs:complexType name="Person">
    <xs:sequence>
      <xs:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" form="unqualified" name="FirstName" type="xs:string" />
      <xs:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" form="unqualified" name="LastName" type="xs:string" />
      <xs:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" form="unqualified" name="PhoneNo" type="xs:string" />
    </xs:sequence>
  </xs:complexType>
</xs:schema>

Answer 1

You can programmatically invoke xsd.exe:

1. Add xsd.exe as assembly reference.
2. using XsdTool;
3. Xsd.Main(new[] { "myassembly.dll", "/type:MyNamespace.MyClass" });

---

You can also use Reflector to look at the XsdTool.Xsd.ExportSchemas method. It uses the public XmlReflectionImporter, XmlSchemas, XmlSchema XmlSchemaExporter and XmlTypeMapping classes to create a schema from .NET types.

Essentially it does this:

var importer = new XmlReflectionImporter();
var schemas = new XmlSchemas();
var exporter = new XmlSchemaExporter(schemas);

var xmlTypeMapping = importer.ImportTypeMapping(typeof(Person));
exporter.ExportTypeMapping(xmlTypeMapping);

schemas.Compile(..., false);

for (var i = 0; i < schemas.Count; i++)
{
    var schema = schemas[i];
    schema.Write(...);
}                 ↑

You should be able to customize the output by passing a suitable writer to the XmlSchema.Write method.

Answer 2

The XML Schema Definition tool generates XML schema or common language runtime classes from XDR, XML, and XSD files, or from classes in a runtime assembly.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/x6c1kb0s(VS.71).aspx

Answer 3

So this works, I guess it wasn't as ugly as it seemed:

var soapReflectionImporter = new SoapReflectionImporter();
var xmlTypeMapping = soapReflectionImporter.ImportTypeMapping(typeof(Person));
var xmlSchemas = new XmlSchemas();
var xmlSchema = new XmlSchema();
xmlSchemas.Add(xmlSchema);
var xmlSchemaExporter = new XmlSchemaExporter(xmlSchemas);
xmlSchemaExporter.ExportTypeMapping(xmlTypeMapping);

I was still hoping there was a 2 line solution out there, it seems like there should be, thanks for the tip @dtb

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EDIT Just for kicks, here's the 2 line version (self deprecating humor)

var typeMapping = new SoapReflectionImporter().ImportTypeMapping(typeof(Person));
new XmlSchemaExporter(new XmlSchemas { new XmlSchema() }).ExportTypeMapping(typeMapping);