web client design

[Mimi]

we are supposed to send to a web service a request object in xml
formatted by industry standard. We have xml dtd. We can either send
xml string or I can create a web reference to the web service and call
their objects to populate the request and send out. My thought is
sending xml document based on xml dtd file must be a better choice
because if we switch to different web services with the same code.
I'm thinking of generating objects base on xml file so if they change
or update the xml.dtd, we just need to re-generate those objects
again. Has anyone done that or do you have any suggestion or
examples? Thanks

 

[Dan Rogers]

Hi Mimi,

The best course for you is to upgrade your DTD to XML Schema, and use one
of the tools that help you generate clases from the schema, such as XSD.exe
or XsdObjectGen.exe. Unfortunately, if you are starting with a DTD, you'll
have to do a conversion, and then fill in any appropriate type information,
since DTD didn't have data types.

I agree with you that sending a string that has what appears to be XML is a
fragile approach. Better to have strongly typed classes to work with so
you get the benefits of type checking.

Regards

Dan Rogers (danro)
Microsoft Corporation
--------------------

 

[mimi]

Thanks Dan.

Hi Mimi,

The best course for you is to upgrade your DTD to XML Schema, and use one
of the tools that help you generate clases from the schema, such as XSD.exe
or XsdObjectGen.exe. Unfortunately, if you are starting with a DTD, you'll
have to do a conversion, and then fill in any appropriate type information,
since DTD didn't have data types.

I agree with you that sending a string that has what appears to be XML is a
fragile approach. Better to have strongly typed classes to work with so
you get the benefits of type checking.

Regards

Dan Rogers (danro)
Microsoft Corporation