# 2957 XML Export from BLOB Columns in .NET Data Provider Results in Incorrect XML Data

---

My app has a feature to EXPORT a record/records so that they can be imported to another database. To accomplish this, I use :-

DataTable.WriteXml(FileName, XmlWriteMode.WriteSchema);

....which writes out the schema and data held in a datatable.

EDB seems to be inconsistent in the way it exports BLOB fields compared to the other providers. For example, here is the XML definition of a field called "data" which is a BLOB field (see attached XML files for more detail):

PGSQL (and others)

<xs:element name="data" type="xs:base64Binary" minOccurs="0" />

EDB

<xs:element name="data" msdata:DataType="System.Array, mscorlib,
Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089"
type="xs:anyType" minOccurs="0" />

EDB seems to map its BLOB fields to a .NET System.Array of "xs:anyType" type, rather than a base64Binary type.