This article is a companion to Code Generation in the .NET Framework Using XML Schema article published in the MSDN XML DevCenter. In that article, I introduce you to the main classes in the .NET framework that enable code generation from XSD files, the very clases the XSD.EXE tool uses. The ideas come from my initial post on Customizing XSD->Classes code generation, the "easy" way. In this article I'll create a VS.NET custom tool for the code shown in the MSDN article.

As you may have guessed from looking at the top of this page, the House of COM column that appeared in the May 2001 issue was my last column on COM (I have already started the bidding war on eBay for that soon-to-be-collector's edition). Dedicated readers may have noticed that I haven't been using the column to write about COM per se for some time. Rather, for the past three years, my work has been shifting to encompass other software integration/component technologies, such as the Common Language Runtime (CLR), ISAPI, XML, SOAP, and Web Services.

The XML support in .NET is provided via five namespaces, System.Xml, System.Xml.XPath, System.Xml.Xsl, System.Xml.Schema, and System.Xml.Serialization. These namespaces are part of the System.Xml.dll assembly. The classes in these namespaces are designed to support XML 1.0, XML Namespaces, XPath, XSLT, DOM, and XSD Schema W3C standards. The .NET Framework does not support SAX, instead supports a different, "pull" based streaming API.

XML is pervasive in .NET. In order to pass the MCAD/MCSD Exam(70-320): Developing XML Web Services and Server Components with Visual C# .NET and the .NET Framework, you need to know XML, starting with this section on accessing and manipulating XML data.

SOAP technologies usually exchange XML over HTTP, but SOAP has its pros and cons, and a lot of discussion has focused on how to use XML more directly to communicate between applications. This tip describes the direct approach, and discusses where it is most appropriate. It also discusses how to use WSDL to describe such services.

A settings class that can be used to store values in an XML document.