Frequently, when writing code, you are faced with a situation where your code depends on these twiddle files, icons, css, javascript, xsd schemas etc, and don’t we all LOVE to be able to ship a single dll for easy maintenance?

.NET makes it darned easy to do so.

I just posted a tip about validating input XML files with an XML Schema. The issue is, I don’t want the user to have to bother with XSD files when using my code. So I embedded them inside the DLL. Here is how. (Note, you can use the below instructions for anything – not just XSD’s).

Step 1: Add the XSD to your class library project just as you would normally

Step 2: Right click à properties on the XSD file, and under Build Action, choose “Embedded Resource”

Step 3: Modify the code as shown here from

XmlSchemaSet schemaSet = new XmlSchemaSet() ;

schemaSet.Add("", XmlReader.Create(xmlSchema));

to

TextReader schemaStream =

    new StreamReader(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetManifestResourceStream(xmlSchema));

XmlSchemaSet schemaSet = new XmlSchemaSet() ;

schemaSet.Add("",XmlReader.Create(schemaStream));

That’s it !! J