>>If the client is .NET, you can return a DataSet without doing anything special. Datasets are serializable out of the box.
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>Ok, for that part it is ok. But, the Web Service is receiving its data into an XML string from another tier. Basically, that is a standard Visual FoxPro CURSORTOXML() string. I would like to convert that into a DataSet so it would be transmitted serialized as you said.

There are two ways to take XML and insert it into a DataSet. You can change the XML format and then Deserialize into a DataSet object, or you can start with a new DataSet and create/fill the DataTables as you step through the XML.

The first suggestion is more elegant, but the second suggestion is probably easier to code in a shorter amount of time.

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A really cool idea is to build a class in VFP to take a cursor and generate XML that matches the format of XML serialized from a DataSet. Then the Web Service could receive a DataSet directly from VFP.