Getting “” at the beginning of my XML File after save() [duplicate]

Answer 1

As everybody else mentioned, it's Unicode issue.

I advise you to try LINQ To XML. Although not really related, I mention it as it's super easy compared to old ways and, more importantly, I assume it might have automatic resolutions to issues like these without extra coding from you.

Answer 2

You can try to change the encoding of the XmlDocument. Below is the example copied from MSDN

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

public class Sample {

  public static void Main() {

    // Create and load the XML document.
    XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
    string xmlString = "<book><title>Oberon's Legacy</title></book>";
    doc.Load(new StringReader(xmlString));

    // Create an XML declaration. 
    XmlDeclaration xmldecl;
    xmldecl = doc.CreateXmlDeclaration("1.0",null,null);
    xmldecl.Encoding="UTF-16";
    xmldecl.Standalone="yes";     

    // Add the new node to the document.
    XmlElement root = doc.DocumentElement;
    doc.InsertBefore(xmldecl, root);

    // Display the modified XML document 
    Console.WriteLine(doc.OuterXml);

  } 

}

Answer 3

It is the UTF-8 BOM, which is actually discouraged by the Unicode standard:

http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode5.0.0/ch02.pdf

Use of a BOM is neither required nor recommended for UTF-8, but may be encountered in contexts where UTF-8 data is converted from other encoding forms that use a BOM or where the BOM is used as a UTF-8 signature

You may disable it using:

var sw = new IO.StreamWriter(path, new System.Text.UTF8Encoding(false));
doc.Save(sw);
sw.Close();

Answer 4

It's a UTF-8 Byte Order Mark (BOM) and is to be expected.