Hi,

I have a large xml file that contains many nested nodes that I want to
convert into a flat structure so I can read it into a single database
table.

I am using VB.Net / SQL Server 2000.

A simple example looks something like this (in my xml file there is
about 15 levels of nesting):

ParentVal1
  ChildVal1
  ChildVal2
       GrandChildVal1
       GrandChildVal2
ParentVal2
  ChildVal1
       GrandChildVal1
       GrandChildVal2

I need to convert this to:

ParentVal1 ChildVal1 blank
ParentVal1 ChildVal2 GrandChildVal1
ParentVal1 ChildVal2 GrandChildVal2
ParentVal2 ChildVal1 GrandChildVal1
ParentVal2 ChildVal1 GrandChildVal2

What is the best way to achieve this?

I can read the xml file into a dataset.  But then the dataset will
contain 15 tables.  Do I need to loop through the tables and write the
results to another dataset perhaps!

Alternatively I can read the file using the XmlTextReader class.  Then
I have to loop through the data evaluating node types etc.  I still
have the problem of trying to create a single record from the nested
structure.

Finally, I have a xsd schema file. Do I gain anything by using the
schema file apart from just validating that the xml file fits its
structure?

Thanks in advance.