Web services, DataSets and making use of XSDs...

Hi all.

I'm just getting in to some XSD programming and could do
with some
advice.  This is quite a lengthy email for which I apologise
in
advance.

I've been asked to create a webservice with some methods,
one of which
is to resturn some customer data.

I am at the point where I would usually return my data like
this:

dstDataset.Tables(0).WriteXml(Response.OutputStream)

Then the calling code would pick apart the response.

However, I am now required to send a response something like
this...
which i believe is based on an XSD:

<?xml version="1.0"
encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<CustomerFindResponse
xmlnssi=&q
uot;http:
//www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="FindCustomer_response_OK
.xsd">
        <Return>true</Return>
        <CustomerList>
                <Customer>
                        <Dealer></Dealer>
                        <TitleCode>5</TitleCode>
                        <Initials>A</Initials>
                       
<CustomerNo>0</CustomerNo>
                       
<Customertype>P</Customertype>
                        <Foren>ANDREW
JAMES</Foren>
                        <Surn>PALMER</Surn>
                        <Company></Company>
                        <AddLine1></AddLine1>
                       
<AddLine2>HASLINGTON</AddLine2>
                        <AddLine3></AddLine3>
                       
<AddPosttown>Crewe</AddPosttown>
                        <PostCode></PostCode>
                       
<HouseNumber>35</HouseNumber>
                </Customer>
                <Customer>
                        <Dealer></Dealer>
                        <TitleCode>3</TitleCode>
                        <Initials>A</Initials>
                       
<CustomerNo>0</CustomerNo>
                       
<Customertype>P</Customertype>
                        <Foren>ANDREW
JAMES</Foren>
                        <Surn>PALMER</Surn>
                        <Company></Company>
                        <AddLine1></AddLine1>
                       
<AddLine2>HASLINGTON</AddLine2>
                        <AddLine3></AddLine3>
                       
<AddPosttown>Crewe</AddPosttown>
                        <PostCode></PostCode>
                       
<HouseNumber>35</HouseNumber>
                </Customer>
        </CustomerList>
</CustomerFindResponse>

And the accompanying XSD:

<?xml version="1.0"
encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xs:schema xmlnss=&qu
ot;http://www.w3.
org/2001/XMLSchema"
elementFormDefault="qualified">
  <xs:element name="CustomerFindResponse">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element ref="Return"/>
        <xs:element ref="CustomerList"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="Return"
type="xs:boolean"/>
  <xs:element name="CustomerList">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element maxOccurs="unbounded"
ref="Customer"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="Customer">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element ref="Dealer"/>
        <xs:element ref="TitleCode"/>
        <xs:element ref="Initials"/>
        <xs:element ref="CustomerNo"/>
        <xs:element ref="Customertype"/>
        <xs:element ref="Foren"/>
        <xs:element ref="Surn"/>
        <xs:element ref="Company"/>
        <xs:element ref="AddLine1"/>
        <xs:element ref="AddLine2"/>
        <xs:element ref="AddLine3"/>
        <xs:element ref="AddPosttown"/>
        <xs:element ref="PostCode"/>
        <xs:element ref="HouseNumber"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="Dealer"
type="xs:integer"/>
  <xs:element name="TitleCode"
type="xs:integer"/>
  <xs:element name="Initials"
type="xs:string"/>
  <xs:element name="CustomerNo"
type="xs:integer"/>
  <xs:element name="Customertype"
type="xs:string"/>
  <xs:element name="Foren"
type="xs:string"/>
  <xs:element name="Surn"
type="xs:string"/>
  <xs:element name="Company"
type="xs:string"/>
  <xs:element name="AddLine1"
type="xs:string"/>
  <xs:element name="AddLine2"
type="xs:string"/>
  <xs:element name="AddLine3"
type="xs:string"/>
  <xs:element name="AddPosttown"
type="xs:string"/>
  <xs:element name="PostCode"
type="xs:string"/>
  <xs:element name="HouseNumber"
type="xs:string"/>
</xs:schema>

My question is this: how do I use the XSD file in my code to
create an
XML document based on the schema?  I believe once i have
created such
an entity i could manually walk the dataset and create new
XML nodes.
Is this the right way to do it?  Am I even on the right
track?

My cheap and nasty alternative is to return the data like
this:

strXML = "<CustomerFindResponse
xmlnssi=&q
uot;"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance""
xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation=""FindCustomer_respo
nse_OK.xsd"">"
strXML += "<Return>true</Return>"
dstDataset.Tables(0).TableName = "Customer"
Dim strData As String = dstDataset.GetXml()
strXML += strData
strXML += "</CustomerFindResponse>"

Return strXML

But this involves a degree of hard-coding and whatsmore the
returned
XML is escaped (the < and > appear as &lt; and
&gt; respectively)

sigh - it's a bit of a nightmare!

Any ideas or advice would really be appreciated.

Cheers,

Ben

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