Is there a way to export an XSD schema from a DataContract

Question

I\'m using DataContractSerializer to serialize/deserialize my classes to/from XML. Everything works fine, but at some point I\'d like to establish a standard schema for the

Answer 1

You might be able to generate schema files from DataContracts using the svcutil.exe tool that comes with Visual Studio.

svcutil myAssembly.dll
   - Generate metadata documents for Service Contracts and associated types in an assembly

svcutil myServiceHost.exe /serviceName:myServiceName
   - Generate metadata documents for a service, and all associated Service Contracts and data types in an assembly

svcutil myServiceHost.exe /dconly
   - Generate metadata documents for data types in an assembly

I believe I messed with this at one point in the past, and may or may not have gotten it to work. Another easy way to generate schemas is to stand up a WCF service that uses your data contracts, and access the WSDL. The WSDL will import all the xsds for the DataContracts.