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XSD2Code classes require duplicate-named element containing collection of elements

Given XSD like:
<xs:complexType name="accident">
<xs:sequence>
<xs:element name="NAME" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element name="DESCRIPTION" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element name="CREATIONDATE" type="xs:dateTime" />
</xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>
<xs:element name="accidents">
<xs:complexType>
<xs:sequence>
<xs:element name="accident" type="accident" maxOccurs="unbounded" minOccurs="0"/>
</xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>
</xs:element>
I expect XML like:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<accidents>
<accident>
<NAME>Accident 123</NAME>
<DESCRIPTION>Car crash</DESCRIPTION>
<CREATIONDATE>2016-01-20T12:08:00+00:00</CREATIONDATE>
</accident>
</accidents>
I used XSD2Code to generate C# classes so I can easy deserialize XML from a web-service. But they weren't working right - they were successfully loading a test XML like my example but there were zero accident elements.
So I decided to reverse the process:
accidents aa = new accidents();
accident a = new accident();
a.NAME = "test";
aa.accident.Add(a);
aa.SaveToFile("accidents.xml");
This emitted the following XML:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<accidents xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<accident>
<accident>
<NAME>test</NAME>
<CREATIONDATE>0001-01-01T00:00:00</CREATIONDATE>
</accident>
</accident>
</accidents>
If I attempt to deserialize that XML, it works just fine. But note, there is a nested accident which is not correct and I have no idea it would do this or what to do to fix it!
This seems to be a similar question but since it didn't get much attention and the XSD isn't included, I'm not sure: xsd2code creates extra nested collection when serializing lists

I'm a bit late on the scene for this one but here goes anyway !!
I have been using Xsd2Code myself for a while to take advantage of some cool features, but I have found it does have some annoying quirks. I agree that this issue you describe looks like a bug. However I have found that the issue disappears if your collection is itself a child element of another complex type. If you are happy for your "accidents" to exist as a property of a "report" for example, then you would alter your schema as follows:
<xs:schema xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" elementFormDefault="qualified">
<xs:complexType name="accident">
<xs:sequence>
<xs:element name="NAME" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element name="DESCRIPTION" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element name="CREATIONDATE" type="xs:dateTime" />
</xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>
<xs:complexType name="accidents">
<xs:sequence>
<xs:element name="accident" type="accident" maxOccurs="unbounded" minOccurs="0"/>
</xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>
<xs:complexType name="report">
<xs:sequence>
<xs:element name="accidents" type="accidents"/>
</xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>
</xs:schema>
When you run this through the Xsd2Code tool you will find that the
generated code creates the accidents property of report type as a list of accidents and will serialize in the way you would expect it.
Your test code should look more like this:
report r = new report();
r.accidents = new List<accident>();
accident a = new accident();
a.NAME = "test";
r.accidents.Add(a);
r.SaveToFile("accidents.xml");
The dodgy accidents class is still generated unfortunately - which could cause confusion to other developers, but there is a way to prevent this.
First, put the accident and accidents complexType definitions in a
file, accidents.xsd. Then put the report definition in report.xsd with
an include statement referencing accidents.xsd. Only pass report.xsd
through the Xsd2Code tool. The malformed accidents class will not appear in the generated code. This is just an illustrative example of course - expand as required. In the absence of a fix, this has been a very good solution for me - hopefully it will suit your needs.

You might start by specifying a target namespace and explicit qualification flags in your XSD. That is, convert your xsd to:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xs:schema attributeFormDefault="unqualified"
elementFormDefault="qualified"
xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
targetNamespace="http://example.com/foo"
xmlns="http://example.com/foo">
<xs:complexType name="accident">
<xs:sequence>
<xs:element name="NAME" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element name="DESCRIPTION" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element name="CREATIONDATE" type="xs:dateTime" />
</xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>
<xs:element name="accidents">
<xs:complexType>
<xs:sequence>
<xs:element name="accident" type="accident" maxOccurs="unbounded" minOccurs="0"/>
</xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>
</xs:element>
</xs:schema>
and your XML to:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<accidents xmlns="http://example.com/foo"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://example.com/foo foo.xsd">
<accident>
<NAME>Accident 123</NAME>
<DESCRIPTION>Car crash</DESCRIPTION>
<CREATIONDATE>2016-01-20T12:08:00+00:00</CREATIONDATE>
</accident>
</accidents>
(You will need to save your xsd file as foo.exe for the above reference to work).
I'm not sure if this will fix your XSD2Code issue, but I've used this header format with xsd.exe for lots of equivalent (and much more complex) code. It gets you Intellisense in your XML and might also be sufficient to get XSD2Code to behave properly.

Generate a test XML from XML Schema programmatically

I have searched for a bit now, but i'm not able to find a way to autogenerate data from a XML Schema programmatically. Lets say I have this XML schema:
<xs:element xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" name ="Persons">
<xs:complexType>
<xs:sequence>
<xs:element name="Person">
<xs:complexType>
<xs:sequence>
<xs:element name="FirstName" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element name="LastName" type="xs:string" />
</xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>
</xs:element>
</xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>
</xs:element>
I am able to create a XML from this using the VS function "Generate Sample XML"
Is there a way to do this programmatically?
Edit: To specify. I do not want to create all the objects and insert data programmatically myself. I would like for it to create the objects and attributes automatically just like the "Generate Sample XML" in VS. The reason for this is that i would like to change the XSD without having to do anything about xml sample generation.

after doing some searching. I have found a project that have implemented a xml sample generator. I created a test solution and imported the classes. Then i deleted the XmlGen.cs file and created my own main method. The output will be based on the root element.
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
using (var stream = new MemoryStream(File.ReadAllBytes("schema.xsd")))
{
var schema = XmlSchema.Read(XmlReader.Create(stream ), null);
var gen = new XmlSampleGenerator(schema, new XmlQualifiedName("rootElement"));
gen.WriteXml(XmlWriter.Create(#"c:\temp\autogen.xml"));
Console.WriteLine("Autogenerated file is here : c:\temp\autogen.xml");
}
}

You can write simple function for put 1 row into your data table and after that execute DataTable.WriteXml(string filePath)
Somethig like that:
xmlschema1 schema=new xmlschema1();
//put some test data in table
schema.Persons.AddPersonsRow(...some params);
//generate xml
schema.Persons.WriteXml(filePath);

Using non default types within a xsd definition for xsd2code when generating C# code

In our project we are using Xsd2Code to generate c# code.
The XSD I am trying to adjust looks like this:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xs:schema attributeFormDefault="unqualified" elementFormDefault="qualified" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<xs:element name="File">
<xs:complexType>
<xs:sequence>
<xs:element name="Version" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element name="Language" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element name="Component" type="xs:anyType" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="unbounded" />
</xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>
</xs:element>
</xs:schema>
Within our project we now defined an abstract class Version. Is it possible to use our own class Version instead of string as the type of the element Version within the Xsd?
We would like to generate as many classes as possible using Xsd2Code. That's why I want to avoid to also having to create the File class by hand.
Thanks in advance for any help.

You can create a new abstract class Version in xsd scheme and then make your defined Version class as partial and put it to the same namespace as the generated classes. By default all your generated classes must be partial.

XML serialization with c# & windows forms

I am trying to create a waypoint generator using windows forms, that allows a user to create waypoint & path data via a GUI & output the data to an XML file. I've chosen to take advantage of the built in c# XML serialization feature, but have been unable to format the XML output in the way required by the client.
A stripped version of the waypoint data object would look something like the following:
// Waypoint data class
[XmlRoot("RootNode")]
public class WaypointProjectData
{
[XmlElement("Map")] // Also tried to use XmlElementAttribute,
[XmlAttribute("file")] // XmlAttributeAttribute, and many variations
// of these qualifiers, with no success
public string m_szMapImageFileName;
[XmlAttribute("width")]
public int m_iWidth;
[XmlAttribute("height")]
public int m_iHeight;
[XmlArray("Nodes")]
public ArrayList m_aoNodes;
WaypointProjectData()
{
m_szMapImageFileName = "map.png";
m_aoNodes = new ArrayList();
}
}
The client requires that the XML output conforms with the following layout/format:
<RootNode>
<Map file="map.png" width="100" height="100" />
<OtherData var="variable" data="10" />
<Nodes>
<Node x="10" y="30" />
<Node x="30" y="20" /> // etc...
</Nodes>
</RootNode>
Some clear examples on how to do this using c# xml serialization would be very helpful. Thanks!

When I have to serialize something in a specific Xml format like this, I start with a schema (inferred if necessary, hand-crafted if known). Then I use the VS xsd tool to create the serialization classes (and yes, I know xsd can be used for the inferring schema part—I just never bother with it for that purpose).
So if you have an xsd file like this one created from your example (note that I specified data types as much as possible—this helps the xsd tool to use the appropriate types for properties):
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xs:schema xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" elementFormDefault="qualified" attributeFormDefault="unqualified">
<xs:element name="RootNode">
<xs:complexType>
<xs:sequence>
<xs:element name="Map">
<xs:complexType>
<xs:attribute name="file" type="xs:string"/>
<xs:attribute name="width" type="xs:decimal"/>
<xs:attribute name="height" type="xs:decimal"/>
</xs:complexType>
</xs:element>
<xs:element name="OtherData">
<xs:complexType>
<xs:attribute name="var" type="xs:string"/>
<xs:attribute name="data" type="xs:decimal"/>
</xs:complexType>
</xs:element>
<xs:element name="Nodes" minOccurs="0">
<xs:complexType>
<xs:sequence>
<xs:element name="Node" maxOccurs="unbounded">
<xs:complexType>
<xs:attribute name="x" type="xs:decimal"/>
<xs:attribute name="y" type="xs:decimal"/>
</xs:complexType>
</xs:element>
</xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>
</xs:element>
</xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>
</xs:element>
</xs:schema>
If you name this Root.xsd, then you can go to the VS command line and run
xsd Root.xsd /c /n:myProject.Xml
That'll create a class file (named Root.cs because that's the default when processing Root.xsd) that contains objects you can easily plug into .Net to serialize and deserialize the XML. Note that I specified the namespace the classes will have ("/n:myProject.Xml"). I prefer to control that namespace, but defaults are usually fine for the rest. Further, the tool creates partial classes, so if you want custom property accessors, you're fine to add them in a separate file that won't get creamed if you need to run the tool again.
Another tip, I create a text file in my project with the name "<xsd name> xsd Command Line.txt". That way I just have to paste that into the VS command line and don't have to remember everything else I used.

As soon as you go off the beaten track serialisation is a huge PIA.
You need something to mark up as map, probably OtherData as well, so that means you need a class or struct that corresponds to the node.
e.g. WaypointProejctdata as a class Map, that has properties filename, width and height.
My general rule of thumb, is as soon as I have to start messing with my objects to get the xml, serialisation gets binned,and I add an interface that takes an XmlReader or Writer and implement it.
Tryng to get serialisation to do what you want is usually way more code and far less comprehensible than doing that.

Changing dataset XSD in VS2010 generates code inheriting from DataTable instead of TypedTableBase<Type>

The current XSD is :
<xs:element name="Country">
<xs:complexType>
<xs:sequence>
<xs:element name="code" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element name="name" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element name="diallingcode" type="xs:int" />
<xs:element name="displayOrder" type="xs:nonNegativeInteger" />
</xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>
<xs:key name="countryKey1">
<xs:selector xpath="." />
<xs:field xpath="mstns:code" />
</xs:key>
</xs:element>
And the generated class is:
[global::System.Serializable()]
[global::System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSchemaProviderAttribute("GetTypedTableSchema")]
public partial class CountryDataTable : global::System.Data.TypedTableBase<CountryRow> {
As soon as I modified the XSD, adding a new field. The generated class changes to:
[global::System.Serializable()]
[global::System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSchemaProviderAttribute("GetTypedTableSchema")]
public partial class CountryDataTable : global::System.Data.DataTable, global::System.Collections.IEnumerable {
This last code breaks some Linq queries that are using the dataset.
Does anyone know what the problem could be?

The generation of code is not behaving properly yet (when updating an existing XSD). The way I've found to sort out the problem is deleting Dataset.Designer.cs file (or just renaming it) every time I want to make a change in the XSD. When the file is being generated from the scratch, the code is generated properly.