Thank you! That did the trick.

You would think that the WriteXml method of a dataset would support a raw string. I do not quite undertand these stream classes yet.

Troy

>You need to create a StringWriter then use the ToString method avaiable on all .NET objects. Here is the code:
>
>Dim cReturnString as String
>Dim cXML As New StringWriter()
>MyDataSet.WriteXml(cXML)
>cReturnString = cXML.ToString()
>
>
>>How dow I populate a STRING with the XML data from a DataSet? I do not want the output to go to a file, but be returned as a pure string for a middle tier that can then be consumed by FoxPro using XMLTOCURSOR().
>>
>>Thanks,
>>Troy