Setting StandAlone = Yes in .Net when serializing an object

Question

In the following code I want to set "standalone = yes" to the xml, how can I do this?

Dim settings As New Xml.XmlWriterSettings
settings.Encoding = encoding

Using stream As New IO.MemoryStream, xtWriter As Xml.XmlWriter = _
    Xml.XmlWriter.Create(stream, settings)
    serializer.Serialize(xtWriter, obj)
    Return encoding.GetString(stream.ToArray())
End Using

For example, I have this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

But I want this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 11:54:56Z

24

I've found a much more elegant way of doing this: simply call WriteStartDocument(true) on your XmlWriter instance - this code serializes data and outputs the resulting XML to console.

First, if you're using a StringWriter you need to tweak it a bit to force UTF-8, but keep this in mind:

When serialising an XML document to a .NET string, the encoding must be set to UTF-16. Strings are stored as UTF-16 internally, so this is the only encoding that makes sense. If you want to store data in a different encoding, you use a byte array instead.

public sealed class Utf8StringWriter : StringWriter
{
    public override Encoding Encoding { get { return Encoding.UTF8; } }
}

using (var sw = new Utf8StringWriter())
using (var xw= XmlWriter.Create(sw, new XmlWriterSettings{Indent = true}))
{
    xw.WriteStartDocument(true); // that bool parameter is called "standalone"

    var namespaces = new XmlSerializerNamespaces();
    namespaces.Add(string.Empty, string.Empty);

    var xmlSerializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(data));
    xmlSerializer.Serialize(xw, data);

    Console.WriteLine(sw.ToString());
}

WriteStartDocument(true) really feels like the idiomatic way of specifying standalone=true. The output heading looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>

edited May 23, 2017 at 11:54

CommunityBot

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answered Nov 27, 2015 at 19:34

Mathieu Guindon

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3 Comments

RubberDuck Over a year ago

Perhaps xw.WriteStartDocument(standalone:=true) would be a good use of named args?

Diwakar Padmaraja Over a year ago

In this code example, looks like 'namespaces' variable as a 3rd parameter to Serialize function was missed? I think xmlSerializer.Serialize(xw, data) should be changed to xmlSerializer.Serialize(xw, data, namespaces) if you want name spaces to be removed. Thanks.

Mathieu Guindon Over a year ago

@DiwakarPadmaraja possibly - the variable seems useless.... but the serialization works as intended as-is anyway.

Chris Haas · Accepted Answer · 2011-08-09 14:13:20Z

7

If you want to do this then you'll need to use WriteProcessingInstruction method and manually write it out.

    Using stream As New IO.MemoryStream, xtWriter As Xml.XmlWriter = Xml.XmlWriter.Create(stream, settings)
        xtWriter.WriteProcessingInstruction("xml", "version=""1.0"" encoding=""UTF-8"" standalone=""yes""")
        serializer.Serialize(xtWriter, obj)
        Return encoding.GetString(stream.ToArray())
    End Using

answered Aug 9, 2011 at 14:13

Chris Haas

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3 Comments

Mr Shoubs Over a year ago

Thank you, that's still not as elegant as I would have hoped, but it is still better than .Replace("<?xml version=""1.0"" encoding=""utf-8""?>", "<?xml version=""1.0"" encoding=""utf-8"" standalone=""yes""?>"). lol

Hasani Blackwell Over a year ago

You can use xmlriter.WriteStartDocument(true);

Mathieu Guindon Over a year ago

@HasaniBlackwell ugh, just now I notice that comment....... that would have been the answer I was looking for!

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