In C#, what is the best method to format a string as XML?

Question

I am creating a lightweight editor in C# and would like to know the best method for converting a string into a nicely formatted XML string. I would hope that there\'s a pub

Answer 1

string unformattedXml = "<?xml version=\"1.0\"?><book><author>Lewis, C.S.</author><title>The Four Loves</title></book>";
string formattedXml = XElement.Parse(unformattedXml).ToString();
Console.WriteLine(formattedXml);

Output:

<book>
  <author>Lewis, C.S.</author>
  <title>The Four Loves</title>
</book>

The Xml Declaration isn't output by ToString(), but it is by Save() ...

  XElement.Parse(unformattedXml).Save(@"C:\doc.xml");
  Console.WriteLine(File.ReadAllText(@"C:\doc.xml"));

Output:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<book>
  <author>Lewis, C.S.</author>
  <title>The Four Loves</title>
</book>

Answer 2

It sounds like you want to load the XML into an XmlTextWriter objects and set the Formatting and Indentation properties:

writer.Formatting = Formatting.Indented;
writer.Indentation = 1;
writer.IndentChar = '\t';

Answer 3

If you just need to escape XML characters the following might be useful:

string myText = "This & that > <> &lt;";
myText = System.Security.SecurityElement.Escape(myText);

Answer 4

Using the new System.Xml.Linq namespace (System.Xml.Linq Assembly) you can use the following:

string theString = "<nodeName>blah</nodeName>";
XDocument doc = XDocument.Parse(theString);

You can also create a fragment with:

string theString = "<nodeName>blah</nodeName>";
XElement element = XElement.Parse(theString);

If the string is not yet XML, you can do something like this:

string theString = "blah";
//creates <nodeName>blah</nodeName>
XElement element = new XElement(XName.Get("nodeName"), theString); 

Something to note in this last example is that XElement will XML Encode the provided string.

I highly recommend the new XLINQ classes. They are lighter weight, and easier to user that most of the existing XmlDocument-related types.