MaxOccurs Attribute Binding Support

The .NET Framework provides partial binding support for the maxOccurs attribute.

For most elements that may specify a maxOccurs attribute, Xsd.exe interprets a value of 0 as 1, producing a non-array field, and a value greater than 1 as unbounded, producing an array field. The behavior varies between elements.

Explanation

The maxOccurs and minOccurs attributes constrain how many times in succession the specified entity can appear in the corresponding position in an XML instance document.

These attributes appear only within complex type definitions. Therefore, for an <element> or <group> element to have these attributes, the element must be a local declaration or a reference to a global declaration, not the global declaration itself.

For binding classes with XML Schema complex types, the .NET Framework does not provide a direct programming language equivalent to the maxOccurs or minOccurs attribute.

When generating source code from an XML Schema document or performing the reverse translation, Xsd.exe interprets the maxOccurs attribute differently based on the XML Schema definition language element in which it appears. The following table explains the interpretations by element:

When generating an XML Schema document from a set of classes in an assembly, Xsd.exe reverses the preceding conversions, producing a maxOccurs value of 1 from a single instance and a maxOccurs value of unbounded from an array.

While Xsd.exe binds a maxOccurs value of unbounded to an array, it binds a maxOccurs value of 1 to the designated parent element, if any, of an array.

A schema data type, with a name that begins with ArrayOf, is created to represent the array's parent element if the default System.Xml.Serialization.XmlArrayAttribute is applied to the array. If an System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute instead is applied to an array, the array elements appear in an instance document as children of the element that binds to the class. For more information on array bindings, see Controlling XML Serialization Using Attributes.

More on array bindings. To understand the translation of a value greater than 1 to an array, consider the difference between declaring an object of a certain type and assigning a value (literally a memory location in the stack or the heap) to that object. Start with the following XSD element:

<xsd:element minOccurs="5" maxOccurs="5" name="items" type="xsd:token" />

Manually writing code, you would not express the array size of five in the type declaration, which would be: public string[] items. Instead you would express the array size when assigning a value: items = new string[5].

The only kinds of source code Xsd.exe produces from an XML schema are type and field declarations and metadata that can be applied to types and fields as attributes. Assigning values to objects extends beyond that scope.

The place to enforce a value greater than 1 is by validating an XML document with the XmlValidatingReader class against an XML Schema document represented by the Schema Object Model (SOM). The SOM uses the XmlSchemaParticle.MaxOccurs and XmlSchemaParticle.MaxOccursString properties, both of which apply to all elements that can contain a maxOccurs attribute.

Example

Input XML schema <choice> element found within a complex type definition:

<xsd:choice maxOccurs="unbounded">
    <xsd:element name="stringA" type="xsd:string"/>
    <xsd:element name="stringB" type="xsd:string"/>
</xsd:choice>

Relevant passages from the C# class generated from the preceding XML Schema document, plus the enumeration representing the element choices, (assuming a target namespace of http://example.org/):

    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute("stringA", typeof(string))]
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute("stringB", typeof(string))]
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlChoiceIdentifierAttribute("ItemsElementName")]
    public string[] Items;
        
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute("ItemsElementName")]
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlIgnoreAttribute()]
    public ItemsChoiceType[] ItemsElementName;
...
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlTypeAttribute(Namespace="http://example.org/", IncludeInSchema=false)]
public enum ItemsChoiceType {
    stringA,
    stringB,
}

The complex type generated from a class compiled from the preceding C# source code is effectively equivalent to the original complex type.

<sequence>

Example

Input XML Schema document containing a sequence with maxOccurs greater than1:

<xsd:schema xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" 
      xmlns="http://example.org/" targetNamespace="http://example.org/" elementFormDefault="qualified">
  <xsd:element name="ComplexInstance">
   <xsd:complexType>
     <xsd:sequence maxOccurs="unbounded">
       <xsd:element name="Field1" type="xsd:token"/>
       <xsd:element name="Field2" type="xsd:int" />
     </xsd:sequence>
   </xsd:complexType>
  </xsd:element>
</xsd:schema>

C# class generated from the preceding XML Schema document without any command line options:

[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlTypeAttribute(Namespace="http://example.org/")]
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlRootAttribute(Namespace="http://example.org/", IsNullable=false)]
public class ComplexInstance {        
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute("Field1", DataType="token")]
    public string[] Field1;
        
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute("Field2")]
    public int[] Field2;
}

XML Schema complex type generated from an assembly compiled from the preceding C# source:

<xs:complexType name="ComplexInstance">
  <xs:sequence>
    <xs:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded" name="Field1" type="xs:token" />
    <xs:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded" name="Field2" type="xs:int" />
  </xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>

As you can see, the resulting schema is not equivalent to the original schema. To properly import a schema having sequences with maxOccurs greater than1, use the /order command line option, resulting in the following:

[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlTypeAttribute

(Namespace="http://example.org/")]

[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlRootAttribute

(Namespace="http://example.org/", IsNullable=false)]

public partial class ComplexInstance

{

/// <remarks/>

[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute

("Field1", typeof(string), DataType="token", Order=0)]

[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute("Field2",

typeof(int), Order=0)]

public object[] Items;

}

Possible containing elements: <all>, <any>, <choice>, <element>, <group>, <sequence>

See Also

Reference

XmlSchemaParticle.MaxOccurs
XmlSchemaParticle.MaxOccursString
XmlSchemaAll
XmlSchemaAny
XmlSchemaChoice
XmlSchemaElement
XmlSchemaGroupRef
XmlSchemaSequence