Validating an XML against referenced XSD in C#

I have an XML file with a specified schema location such as this:

xsi:schemaLocation="someurl ..\localSchemaPath.xsd"

I want to validate in C#. Visual Studio, when I open the file, validates it against the schema and lists errors perfectly. Somehow, though, I can't seem to validate it automatically in C# without specifying the schema to validate against like so:

XmlDocument asset = new XmlDocument();
    
XmlTextReader schemaReader = new XmlTextReader("relativeSchemaPath");
XmlSchema schema = XmlSchema.Read(schemaReader, SchemaValidationHandler);
    
asset.Schemas.Add(schema);

asset.Load(filename);
asset.Validate(DocumentValidationHandler);

Shouldn't I be able to validate with the schema specified in the XML file automatically ? What am I missing ?

You need to create an XmlReaderSettings instance and pass that to your XmlReader when you create it. Then you can subscribe to the ValidationEventHandler in the settings to receive validation errors. Your code will end up looking like this:

using System.Xml;
using System.Xml.Schema;
using System.IO;

public class ValidXSD
{
    public static void Main()
    {

        // Set the validation settings.
        XmlReaderSettings settings = new XmlReaderSettings();
        settings.ValidationType = ValidationType.Schema;
        settings.ValidationFlags |= XmlSchemaValidationFlags.ProcessInlineSchema;
        settings.ValidationFlags |= XmlSchemaValidationFlags.ProcessSchemaLocation;
        settings.ValidationFlags |= XmlSchemaValidationFlags.ReportValidationWarnings;
        settings.ValidationEventHandler += new ValidationEventHandler(ValidationCallBack);

        // Create the XmlReader object.
        XmlReader reader = XmlReader.Create("inlineSchema.xml", settings);

        // Parse the file. 
        while (reader.Read()) ;

    }
    // Display any warnings or errors.
    private static void ValidationCallBack(object sender, ValidationEventArgs args)
    {
        if (args.Severity == XmlSeverityType.Warning)
            Console.WriteLine("\tWarning: Matching schema not found.  No validation occurred." + args.Message);
        else
            Console.WriteLine("\tValidation error: " + args.Message);

    }
}

A simpler way, if you are using .NET 3.5, is to use XDocument and XmlSchemaSet validation.

XmlSchemaSet schemas = new XmlSchemaSet();
schemas.Add(schemaNamespace, schemaFileName);

XDocument doc = XDocument.Load(filename);
string msg = "";
doc.Validate(schemas, (o, e) => {
    msg += e.Message + Environment.NewLine;
});
Console.WriteLine(msg == "" ? "Document is valid" : "Document invalid: " + msg);

See the MSDN documentation for more assistance.

The following example validates an XML file and generates the appropriate error or warning.

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Xml;
using System.Xml.Schema;

public class Sample
{

    public static void Main()
    {
        //Load the XmlSchemaSet.
        XmlSchemaSet schemaSet = new XmlSchemaSet();
        schemaSet.Add("urn:bookstore-schema", "books.xsd");

        //Validate the file using the schema stored in the schema set.
        //Any elements belonging to the namespace "urn:cd-schema" generate
        //a warning because there is no schema matching that namespace.
        Validate("store.xml", schemaSet);
        Console.ReadLine();
    }

    private static void Validate(String filename, XmlSchemaSet schemaSet)
    {
        Console.WriteLine();
        Console.WriteLine("\r\nValidating XML file {0}...", filename.ToString());

        XmlSchema compiledSchema = null;

        foreach (XmlSchema schema in schemaSet.Schemas())
        {
            compiledSchema = schema;
        }

        XmlReaderSettings settings = new XmlReaderSettings();
        settings.Schemas.Add(compiledSchema);
        settings.ValidationEventHandler += new ValidationEventHandler(ValidationCallBack);
        settings.ValidationType = ValidationType.Schema;

        //Create the schema validating reader.
        XmlReader vreader = XmlReader.Create(filename, settings);

        while (vreader.Read()) { }

        //Close the reader.
        vreader.Close();
    }

    //Display any warnings or errors.
    private static void ValidationCallBack(object sender, ValidationEventArgs args)
    {
        if (args.Severity == XmlSeverityType.Warning)
            Console.WriteLine("\tWarning: Matching schema not found.  No validation occurred." + args.Message);
        else
            Console.WriteLine("\tValidation error: " + args.Message);

    }
}

The preceding example uses the following input files.

<?xml version='1.0'?>
<bookstore xmlns="urn:bookstore-schema" xmlns:cd="urn:cd-schema">
  <book genre="novel">
    <title>The Confidence Man</title>
    <price>11.99</price>
  </book>
  <cd:cd>
    <title>Americana</title>
    <cd:artist>Offspring</cd:artist>
    <price>16.95</price>
  </cd:cd>
</bookstore>

books.xsd

<xsd:schema xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
    xmlns="urn:bookstore-schema"
    elementFormDefault="qualified"
    targetNamespace="urn:bookstore-schema">

 <xsd:element name="bookstore" type="bookstoreType"/>

 <xsd:complexType name="bookstoreType">
  <xsd:sequence maxOccurs="unbounded">
   <xsd:element name="book"  type="bookType"/>
  </xsd:sequence>
 </xsd:complexType>

 <xsd:complexType name="bookType">
  <xsd:sequence>
   <xsd:element name="title" type="xsd:string"/>
   <xsd:element name="author" type="authorName"/>
   <xsd:element name="price"  type="xsd:decimal"/>
  </xsd:sequence>
  <xsd:attribute name="genre" type="xsd:string"/>
 </xsd:complexType>

 <xsd:complexType name="authorName">
  <xsd:sequence>
   <xsd:element name="first-name"  type="xsd:string"/>
   <xsd:element name="last-name" type="xsd:string"/>
  </xsd:sequence>
 </xsd:complexType>

</xsd:schema>

personally I favor validating without a callback:

public bool ValidateSchema(string xmlPath, string xsdPath)
{
    XmlDocument xml = new XmlDocument();
    xml.Load(xmlPath);

    xml.Schemas.Add(null, xsdPath);

    try
    {
        xml.Validate(null);
    }
    catch (XmlSchemaValidationException)
    {
        return false;
    }
    return true;
}

(see Timiz0r's post in https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7719022/synchronous-xml-schema-validation-net-3-5)

I had do this kind of automatic validation in VB and this is how I did it (converted to C#):

XmlReaderSettings settings = new XmlReaderSettings();
settings.ValidationType = ValidationType.Schema;
settings.ValidationFlags = settings.ValidationFlags |
                           Schema.XmlSchemaValidationFlags.ProcessSchemaLocation;
XmlReader XMLvalidator = XmlReader.Create(reader, settings);

Then I subscribed to the settings.ValidationEventHandler event while reading the file.