Bonnie,

I think that answers my question. I've experimented with ReadXML before to read in data from VFP's CursorToXML(), but I guess I was thinking (hoping) that .NET and SOAP would handle the XML conversions for DataSets automatically, like it does for simple types. In other words, you return a DataSet from your method, the client receives the result as a DataSet, and SOAP/.NET takes care of all the XML stuff in the middle. I've never tried that though, so I could be dreaming. <g>

Thanks.

>Joel,
>
>You can use the ReadXml method of a DataSet to read in the XML and then use the XmlReadMode to determine how you want to get the schema. In our case, I don't think it's included in-line with the data, but XmlReadMode.InferSchema tries to figure it out from the data itself.
>
>Does that answer the question?
>
>~~Bonnie
>
>
>>Thanks Bonnie,
>>
>>Somehow, that all made sense to me <g>. I do have another question for you, since you are using a Web Service. Suppose you gave me access to your Web Service, and I am using a VS .NET client to access it, but you don't give me the source .xsd file. Would the WSDL for your Web Service contain the type information so I get a Typed DataSet on my end automatically?
>>
>>>Joel,
>>>
>>>Well, first of all, we don't do SQL statements "on the fly". All of our data access is through Stored Procs that are called from the server-side DataAccess layer. All our data is passed around between the tiers via Typed DataSets. IOW, our UI communicates to the server-side stuff via a WebService which calls the BizObject, which calls the DataAccess object which returns a DataSet back through to the WebService which returns the DataSet's XML, which is turned back into a DataSet. Sounds complicated, but it's not really.
>>>
>>>~~Bonnie