I'm creating a program using C# (in ASP.NET environment) that makes an XML file. It uses XmlWriter class for writing, but there's one thing I'm not sure how to do.
Say, to write a string I do:
xmlWriter.WriteElementString("c1", "name");
which becomes:
< c1 >name< /c1 >
That is great, until I try to write an empty string:
xmlWriter.WriteElementString("c1", "");
which becomes:
< c1/ >
But how do you format it to be?
< c1 >< /c1 >
using (XmlWriter writer = new XmlTextWriter(stream)
{
writer.WriteStartElement("c1")
writer.WriteString("")
writer.WriteFullEndElement()
}
EDIT: Here's testable code. It doesn't matter how you create the XmlWriter
public static void Main()
{
using (StringWriter sw = new StringWriter())
{
using (XmlWriter xw = XmlWriter.Create(sw))
{
xw.WriteStartElement("c1");
xw.WriteString(string.Empty);
xw.WriteFullEndElement();
}
Console.Write(sw.ToString()); // Prints <c1></c1>
}
}
What implementation of XmlWriter are you using?
using (XmlWriter writer = XmlWriter.Create(stream)). I doubt that it matters which writer you are using. The focus should be on explicitly writing a start element, and a full end element.Both contructs (<c1/> and <c1></c1>) are identical from XML point of view, so it is very likely that compliant reader will not let you distinguish between them. If you need to have special "null" value consider using xsi:nil ( http://w3.org/TR/xmlschema-1/#xsi_nil ) which is designed for this.
<c1 xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:nil="true"/>
< c1/ > is proper for an empty element. Much like how you would use < br/ > in html for a new line.
If you do not like this syntax, although it is correct, you could manually parse all tags containing /> to be broken into <> </> manually. Otherwise, perhaps you should consider using xmlWriter.WriteElementString("c1", " ");
