Autogenerated XSD.exe code

Hi,

This is more of a .NET question rather than specifically C#, anyway..

I have an XML settings file that stores mappings between fields in two different databases.

<Mappings>
<Mapping name="userName">givenName</Mapping>
<Mapping name="telephone">telephoneNumber</Mapping>
etc...
</Mappings>


I have used XSD.exe to auto generate some classes from the files XSD schema and this results in an array that contains the Mapping objects.

I need to be able to itterate over the list of Mappings so an Array works fine for this. But I also need to access the Mappings via their name so it would be great if these were stored in some sort of dictionary and keyed by the name, eg..

Settings.Mappings["userName"] = "a new value";


Is there any way I can change my schema data structure to provide dictionary type access to the mappings, or can I provide any customized settings to XSD.exe to tell it not to use an array?


Many Thanks,
Martyn.

I generated a class using the xsd.exe file for the following xml document.

Code:

---

<Mappings>
          <Mapping name="userName">givenName</Mapping>
          <Mapping name="telephone">telephoneNumber</Mapping>
</Mappings>

---

I modified the class it created to add in a dictionary object. Not sure it works, though it does compile. As far as i know there is no way to have the xsd.exe reconize any form of generic object. The most complex it goes is an array. However as you see i placed the [XmlIgnore()] attribute above the Dictionary property, when its serializing the object it will ignore this field and it won't throw any errors. Let me know if this works for you.

Code:

---

//------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// <auto-generated>
//    This code was generated by a tool.
//    Runtime Version:2.0.50727.3053
//
//    Changes to this file may cause incorrect behavior and will be lost if
//    the code is regenerated.
// </auto-generated>
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------

using System;
using System.Xml.Serialization;
using System.Collections.Generic;

//
// This source code was auto-generated by xsd, Version=2.0.50727.1432.
//


/// <remarks/>
[System.CodeDom.Compiler.GeneratedCodeAttribute("xsd", "2.0.50727.1432")]
[System.SerializableAttribute()]
[System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThroughAttribute()]
[System.ComponentModel.DesignerCategoryAttribute("code")]
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlTypeAttribute(AnonymousType = true)]
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlRootAttribute(Namespace = "", IsNullable = false)]
public partial class Mappings
{

    private MappingsMapping[] mappingField;
    private Dictionary<String, String> map = null;

    /// <remarks/>
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute("Mapping")]
    public MappingsMapping[] Mapping
    {
        get
        {
            return this.mappingField;
        }
        set
        {
            this.mappingField = value;
        }
    }

    private void InitDictionary()
    {
        map = new Dictionary<String, String>();

        foreach (MappingsMapping m in mappingField)
            map[m.name] = m.Value;
    }

    [XmlIgnore()]
    public Dictionary<String, String> Dict
    {
        get
        {
            if (map == null)
                InitDictionary();
            return map;
        }
    }
}

/// <remarks/>
[System.CodeDom.Compiler.GeneratedCodeAttribute("xsd", "2.0.50727.1432")]
[System.SerializableAttribute()]
[System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThroughAttribute()]
[System.ComponentModel.DesignerCategoryAttribute("code")]
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlTypeAttribute(AnonymousType = true)]
public partial class MappingsMapping
{

    private string nameField;

    private string valueField;

    /// <remarks/>
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlAttributeAttribute()]
    public string name
    {
        get
        {
            return this.nameField;
        }
        set
        {
            this.nameField = value;
        }
    }

    /// <remarks/>
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlTextAttribute()]
    public string Value
    {
        get
        {
            return this.valueField;
        }
        set
        {
            this.valueField = value;
        }
    }
}

---

Hi monalin,

I actually ended up going down a very similar route to the solution you have provided. I needed to keep the auto generated code un-modified because it is likely that this code will be rebuilt regularly, hence any changes would be lost

Fortunately, XSD.exe creates the classes with the 'partial' modifier so I was able to add my customizations to a seperate file, thus allowing the auto generated file to be rebuilt while still keeping the changes.


I added a dictionary property to the class that is a wrapper around the original array and the get/set methods of the dictionary directly access and update the correct element in the array.

Thanks for your help.