How to remove all namespaces from XML with C#?

Question

I am looking for the clean, elegant and smart solution to remove namespacees from all XML elements? How would function to do that look like?

Defined interface:

Answer 1

This worked for me.

       FileStream fs = new FileStream(filePath, FileMode.Open);

       StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(fs);

        DataSet ds = new DataSet();
        ds.ReadXml(sr);
        ds.Namespace = "";

        string outXML = ds.GetXml();
        ds.Dispose();
        sr.Dispose();
        fs.Dispose();

Answer 2

Pick it up again, in C# - added line for copying the attributes:

    static XElement stripNS(XElement root)
    {
        XElement res = new XElement(
            root.Name.LocalName,
            root.HasElements ?
                root.Elements().Select(el => stripNS(el)) :
                (object)root.Value
        );

        res.ReplaceAttributes(
            root.Attributes().Where(attr => (!attr.IsNamespaceDeclaration)));

        return res;
    }

Answer 3

This is a solution based on Peter Stegnar's accepted answer.

I used it, but (as andygjp and John Saunders remarked) his code ignores attributes.

I needed to take care of attributes too, so I adapted his code. Andy's version was Visual Basic, this is still c#.

I know it's been a while, but perhaps it'll save somebody some time one day.

    private static XElement RemoveAllNamespaces(XElement xmlDocument)
    {
        XElement xmlDocumentWithoutNs = removeAllNamespaces(xmlDocument);
        return xmlDocumentWithoutNs;
    }

    private static XElement removeAllNamespaces(XElement xmlDocument)
    {
        var stripped = new XElement(xmlDocument.Name.LocalName);            
        foreach (var attribute in
                xmlDocument.Attributes().Where(
                attribute =>
                    !attribute.IsNamespaceDeclaration &&
                    String.IsNullOrEmpty(attribute.Name.NamespaceName)))
        {
            stripped.Add(new XAttribute(attribute.Name.LocalName, attribute.Value));
        }
        if (!xmlDocument.HasElements)
        {
            stripped.Value = xmlDocument.Value;
            return stripped;
        }
        stripped.Add(xmlDocument.Elements().Select(
            el =>
                RemoveAllNamespaces(el)));            
        return stripped;
    }

Answer 4

For attributes to work the for loop for adding attribute should go after recursion, also need to check if IsNamespaceDeclaration:

private static XElement RemoveAllNamespaces(XElement xmlDocument)
{
    XElement xElement;

    if (!xmlDocument.HasElements)
    {
        xElement = new XElement(xmlDocument.Name.LocalName) { Value = xmlDocument.Value };
    }
    else
    {
        xElement = new XElement(xmlDocument.Name.LocalName, xmlDocument.Elements().Select(RemoveAllNamespaces));
    }

    foreach (var attribute in xmlDocument.Attributes())
    {
        if (!attribute.IsNamespaceDeclaration)
        {
            xElement.Add(attribute);
        }
    }

    return xElement;
}

Answer 5

the obligatory answer using LINQ:

static XElement stripNS(XElement root) {
    return new XElement(
        root.Name.LocalName,
        root.HasElements ? 
            root.Elements().Select(el => stripNS(el)) :
            (object)root.Value
    );
}
static void Main() {
    var xml = XElement.Parse(@"<?xml version=""1.0"" encoding=""utf-16""?>
    <ArrayOfInserts xmlns:xsi=""http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"" xmlns:xsd=""http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"">
      <insert>
        <offer xmlns=""http://schema.peters.com/doc_353/1/Types"">0174587</offer>
        <type2 xmlns=""http://schema.peters.com/doc_353/1/Types"">014717</type2>
        <supplier xmlns=""http://schema.peters.com/doc_353/1/Types"">019172</supplier>
        <id_frame xmlns=""http://schema.peters.com/doc_353/1/Types"" />
        <type3 xmlns=""http://schema.peters.com/doc_353/1/Types"">
          <type2 />
          <main>false</main>
        </type3>
        <status xmlns=""http://schema.peters.com/doc_353/1/Types"">Some state</status>
      </insert>
    </ArrayOfInserts>");
    Console.WriteLine(stripNS(xml));
}

Answer 6

And this is the perfect solution that will also remove XSI elements. (If you remove the xmlns and don't remove XSI, .Net shouts at you...)

string xml = node.OuterXml;
//Regex below finds strings that start with xmlns, may or may not have :and some text, then continue with =
//and ", have a streach of text that does not contain quotes and end with ". similar, will happen to an attribute
// that starts with xsi.
string strXMLPattern = @"xmlns(:\w+)?=""([^""]+)""|xsi(:\w+)?=""([^""]+)""";
xml = Regex.Replace(xml, strXMLPattern, "");