Format XML string to print friendly XML string
You will have to parse the content somehow ... I find using LINQ the most easy way to do it. Again, it all depends on your exact scenario. Here's a working example using LINQ to format an input XML string.
string FormatXml(string xml)
{
try
{
XDocument doc = XDocument.Parse(xml);
return doc.ToString();
}
catch (Exception)
{
// Handle and throw if fatal exception here; don't just ignore them
return xml;
}
}
[using statements are ommitted for brevity]
Use XmlTextWriter
...
public static string PrintXML(string xml)
{
string result = "";
MemoryStream mStream = new MemoryStream();
XmlTextWriter writer = new XmlTextWriter(mStream, Encoding.Unicode);
XmlDocument document = new XmlDocument();
try
{
// Load the XmlDocument with the XML.
document.LoadXml(xml);
writer.Formatting = Formatting.Indented;
// Write the XML into a formatting XmlTextWriter
document.WriteContentTo(writer);
writer.Flush();
mStream.Flush();
// Have to rewind the MemoryStream in order to read
// its contents.
mStream.Position = 0;
// Read MemoryStream contents into a StreamReader.
StreamReader sReader = new StreamReader(mStream);
// Extract the text from the StreamReader.
string formattedXml = sReader.ReadToEnd();
result = formattedXml;
}
catch (XmlException)
{
// Handle the exception
}
mStream.Close();
writer.Close();
return result;
}
This one, from kristopherjohnson is heaps better:
- It doesn't require an XML document header either.
- Has clearer exceptions
- Adds extra behaviour options: OmitXmlDeclaration = true, NewLineOnAttributes = true
-
Less lines of code
static string PrettyXml(string xml) { var stringBuilder = new StringBuilder(); var element = XElement.Parse(xml); var settings = new XmlWriterSettings(); settings.OmitXmlDeclaration = true; settings.Indent = true; settings.NewLineOnAttributes = true; using (var xmlWriter = XmlWriter.Create(stringBuilder, settings)) { element.Save(xmlWriter); } return stringBuilder.ToString(); }
The simple solution that is working for me:
XmlDocument xmlDoc = new XmlDocument();
StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();
xmlDoc.LoadXml(rawStringXML);
xmlDoc.Save(sw);
String formattedXml = sw.ToString();