Importing plain xml into typed datasets on the fly

[DC]

Hi,

I am about (to be forced) to implement a number of webcontrols that
display data from various xml sources. The data is to be loaded on the
fly, some data is to be cached.

The data will primarily be delivered from two providers and is quiet
plain, e.g.

<row>
<foo>bar</foo>
</row>

But of course there are about 50 versions of foo. Foo may also
represent a string, a decimal or a date, but the dates will look
different every other week. Also, the provider will add more foo and
my client will want to use all the new foo he can get. No dtd or other
schema is available.

I thought about implementing a custom provider for the (initially two)
xml providers. That will give me the opportunity to switch providers
in the web.config and also per request.

I want to use typed datasets to represent the imported data for my
webcontrols.

The question that remains open is how to import the xml data and map
it to the typed datasets. Ideally, I would like a graphic mapping
between the xml and the typed dataset and be able to adapt the schema
of the typed dataset and the mapping (including the tanslation of
weird date and decimal formats) without compiling. I have seen
something like that in biztalk server but that is no option here - I
must stick with what VS2005 has got to offer.

I was hoping that somebody here had done this before and knows a
convenient way to adapt to heterogenious xml sources. TIA for any
hint!

Regards
DC