My application generates XML using XmlDocument. Some of the data contains newline and carriage return characters.
When text is assigned to an XmlElement like this:
e.InnerText = "Hello\nThere";
The resulting XML looks like this:
<e>Hello
There</e>
The receiver of the XML (which I have no control over) treats the new-line as white space and sees the above text as:
"Hello There"
For the receiver to retain the new-line it requires the encoding to be:
<e>Hello
There</e>
If the data is applied to an XmlAttribute, the new-line is properly encoded.
I've tried applying text to XmlElement using InnerText and InnerXml but the output is the same for both.
Is there a way to get XmlElement text nodes to output new-lines and carriage-returns in their encoded forms?
Here is some sample code to demonstrate the problem:
string s = "return[\r] newline[\n] special[&<>\"']";
XmlDocument d = new XmlDocument();
d.AppendChild( d.CreateXmlDeclaration( "1.0", null, null ) );
XmlElement r = d.CreateElement( "root" );
d.AppendChild( r );
XmlElement e = d.CreateElement( "normal" );
r.AppendChild( e );
XmlAttribute a = d.CreateAttribute( "attribute" );
e.Attributes.Append( a );
a.Value = s;
e.InnerText = s;
s = s
.Replace( "&" , "&" )
.Replace( "<" , "<" )
.Replace( ">" , ">" )
.Replace( "\"", """ )
.Replace( "'" , "'" )
.Replace( "\r", "
" )
.Replace( "\n", "
" )
;
e = d.CreateElement( "encoded" );
r.AppendChild( e );
a = d.CreateAttribute( "attribute" );
e.Attributes.Append( a );
a.InnerXml = s;
e.InnerXml = s;
d.Save( @"C:\Temp\XmlNewLineHandling.xml" );
The output of this program is:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
<normal attribute="return[
] newline[
] special[&<>"']">return[
] newline[
] special[&<>"']</normal>
<encoded attribute="return[
] newline[
] special[&<>"']">return[
] newline[
] special[&<>"']</encoded>
</root>
Thanks in advance. Chris.
How about using HttpUtility.HtmlEncode()
?
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/73z22y6h.aspx
OK, sorry about the wrong lead there. HttpUtility.HtmlEncode()
will not handle the newline issue you're facing.
This blog link will help you out, though
http://weblogs.asp.net/mschwarz/archive/2004/02/16/73675.aspx
Basically, the newline handling is controlled by the xml:space="preserve"
attribute.
Sample working code:
XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.LoadXml("<ROOT/>");
doc.DocumentElement.InnerText = "1234\r\n5678";
XmlAttribute e = doc.CreateAttribute(
"xml",
"space",
"http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace");
e.Value = "preserve";
doc.DocumentElement.Attributes.Append(e);
var child = doc.CreateElement("CHILD");
child.InnerText = "1234\r\n5678";
doc.DocumentElement.AppendChild(child);
Console.WriteLine(doc.InnerXml);
Console.ReadLine();
The output will read:
<ROOT xml:space="preserve">1234
5678<CHILD>1234
5678</CHILD></ROOT>
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