Unsupported:

• Some restriction types
• Recursive choices and choices whose elements have minOccurs > 0 or nillable="true" (see below)
• Possible name clashes and invalid identifiers when names contain non-alphanumeric characters
• Groups with maxOccurs > 0

Usage

For command line use, choose your preferred installation:

• Binary zips included in the releases on GitHub
• Binaries in the tools folder in the console application NuGet package
• .NET Core CLI tool available in the dotnet-xscgen NuGet package
• CI Builds are available at the NuGet feed https://ci.appveyor.com/nuget/xmlschemaclassgenerator-0f1t3r6ti475

For use from code use the library NuGet package:

Specifying the NamespaceProvider is optional. If you don't provide one, C# namespaces will be generated automatically. The example above shows how to create a custom NamespaceProvider that has a dictionary for a number of specific namespaces as well as a generator function for XML namespaces that are not in the dictionary. In the example the generator function is the default function but with a custom namespace prefix. You can also use a custom generator function, e.g.

Mapping xsd files to C# namespaces

Using the optional | syntax of the -n command line option you can map individual xsd files to C# namespaces. If you have several input files using the same XML namespace you can still generate an individual C# namespace for the types defined within a single xsd file. For example, if you have two input files a.xsd and b.xsd both of which have the same targetNamespace of http://example.com/namespace you can generate the C# namespaces Example.NamespaceA and Example.NamespaceB:

Mapping empty XML namespaces

In order to provide a C# namespace name for an empty XML namespace you can specify it on the command line like this:

An alternative form that is also valid is -n =Example. Note the space between -n and =Example.

Using mapping files

Instead of specifying the namespace mappings on the command line you can also use a mapping file which should contain one mapping per line in the following format:

Use the --nf option to specify the mapping file.

Substituting generated C# type and member names

If a xsd file specifies obscure names for their types (classes, enums) or members (properties), you can substitute these using the --tns/--typeNameSubstitute= parameter:

The syntax for substitution is: {kindId}:{generatedName}={substituteName}

The {kindId} is a single character identifier based on documentation/analysis ID format, where valid values are:

Using substitution files

Instead of specifying the substitutions on the command line you can also use a substitution file which should contain one substitution per line in the following format:

Use the --tnsf/--typeNameSubstituteFile option to specify the substitution file.

Nullables<a name="nullables"></a>

XmlSerializer has been present in the .NET Framework since version 1.1 and has never been updated to provide support for nullables which are a natural fit for the problem of signaling the absence or presence of a value type but have only been present since .NET Framework 2.0.

Instead XmlSerializer has support for a pattern where you provide an additional bool property with "Specified" appended to the name to signal if the original property should be serialized. For example:

XmlSchemaClassGenerator can optionally generate an additional nullable property that works as an adapter to both properties:

Choice Elements<a name="choice"></a>

The support for choice elements differs from that provided by xsd.exe. Xsd.exe generates a property called Item of type object and, if not all choices have a distinct type, another enum property that selects the chosen element. Besides being non-typesafe and non-intuitive, this approach breaks apart if the choices have a more complicated structure (e.g. sequences), resulting in possibly schema-invalid XML.

XmlSchemaClassGenerator currently simply pretends choices are sequences. This means you'll have to take care only to set a schema-valid combination of these properties to non-null values.

Interfaces<a name="interfaces"></a>

Groups and attribute groups in XML Schema are reusable components that can be included in multiple type definitions. XmlSchemaClassGenerator can optionally generate interfaces from these groups to make it easier to access common properties on otherwise unrelated classes. So

becomes

Collection types

Values for the --collectionType and --collectionImplementationType options have to be given in the format accepted by the Type.GetType() method. For the System.Collections.Generic.List<T> class this means System.Collections.Generic.List`1.

Integer and derived types

Not all numeric types defined by XML Schema can be safely and accurately mapped to .NET numeric data types, however, it's possible to approximate the mapping based on the integer bounds and restrictions such as totalDigits.
If an explicit integer type mapping is specified via --integer=TYPE, that type will be used, otherwise an approximation will be made based on the table below. If you additionally specify --fallback, the type specified via --integer=TYPE will be used only if no type can be deduced by applying the rules below.

If the restrictions minInclusive and maxInclusive are present on the integer element, then the smallest CLR type that fully encompasses the specified range will be used. Unsigned types are given precedence over signed types. The following table shows the possible ranges and their corresponding CLR type, in the order they will be applied.

If the range specified by minInclusive and maxInclusive does not fit in any CLR type, or if those restrictions are not present, then the totalDigits restriction will be used, as shown in the following table.

Unions

If you specify --unionCommonType, XmlSchemaClassGenerator will try to determine a common type for a union's member types. If, for example, the member types are all integer types, then the narrowest integer type will be used that can fit all member types.

Note that semantic issues might arise with this approach. For example, DateTime values are serialized with both date and time information included. See discussion at #397.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Here are some guidelines:

• If it's not a trivial fix, please submit an issue first
• Try and blend new code with the existing code's style
• Add unit tests