Glad that worked. If you look at the xml file, you should see the data type information now stored in it. The ReadXml methos uses that information to determine the correct data types when importing.

>Sorry, I should have looked at the help more closely.
>
>I used Ds.WriteXml("file.xml",XmlWriteMode.WriteSchema);
>
>and that did the trick.
>
>Thanks!
>
>Kevin