extra closing bracket in xml

Question

I am using this example to save some variables to an xml file:

how do I set the current class to the return types results

This is my code for the settings file:

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using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Xml.Serialization;

namespace ssscc.Settings
{
  public class AppSettings
  {
    public string ReceiptLine1 { set; get; }
    public string ReceiptLine2 { set; get; }
    public string ReceiptLine3 { set; get; }
    public string ReceiptLine4 { set; get; }
    public string ReceiptLine5 { set; get; }
    public string ReceiptLine6 { set; get; }
    public bool ReceiptLine1Enabled { set; get; }
    public bool ReceiptLine2Enabled { set; get; }
    public bool ReceiptLine3Enabled { set; get; }
    public bool ReceiptLine4Enabled { set; get; }
    public bool ReceiptLine5Enabled { set; get; }
    public bool ReceiptLine6Enabled { set; get; }

    public string GatewayUserName { set; get; }
    public string GatewayPassword { set; get; }
    public string GatewayId { set; get; }

    private static string GetSettingsFile()
    {
      var exePath = System.Windows.Forms.Application.StartupPath;
      var sharedDirectory = Path.Combine(exePath, "shared");
      var settingsDirectory = Path.Combine(sharedDirectory, "settings");
      var settingsFile = Path.Combine(settingsDirectory, "ssscc.xml");

      if (!Directory.Exists(sharedDirectory))
      {
        Directory.CreateDirectory(sharedDirectory);
      }

      if (!Directory.Exists(settingsDirectory))
      {
        Directory.CreateDirectory(settingsDirectory);
      }

      return settingsFile;
    }

    internal void SaveSettings()
    {
      var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(AppSettings));
      using (var stream = File.OpenWrite(GetSettingsFile()))
        serializer.Serialize((Stream)stream, this);
    }

    internal static AppSettings GetInstance()
    {
      try
      {

      if (!File.Exists(GetSettingsFile()))
        return null;

      var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(AppSettings));
      using (var stream = File.OpenRead(GetSettingsFile()))
      {
        return (AppSettings)serializer.Deserialize(stream);
      }

      }
      catch (Exception ex)
      {
        Console.WriteLine(ex.Message);
        throw;
      }
    }

  }
}

When I save the data the, the initial save goes fine and at the end of the file it shows:

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<?xml version="1.0"?>
<AppSettings xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <ReceiptLine1 />
  <ReceiptLine2 />
  <ReceiptLine3 />
  <ReceiptLine4 />
  <ReceiptLine5 />
  <ReceiptLine6 />
  <ReceiptLine1Enabled>false</ReceiptLine1Enabled>
  <ReceiptLine2Enabled>true</ReceiptLine2Enabled>
  <ReceiptLine3Enabled>false</ReceiptLine3Enabled>
  <ReceiptLine4Enabled>false</ReceiptLine4Enabled>
  <ReceiptLine5Enabled>false</ReceiptLine5Enabled>
  <ReceiptLine6Enabled>false</ReceiptLine6Enabled>
  <GatewayUserName>asdfasdf</GatewayUserName>
  <GatewayPassword>asdf</GatewayPassword>
  <GatewayId>sdf</GatewayId>
</AppSettings>

When I update the file and save it again, I end up with this:

Click to copy

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<AppSettings xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <ReceiptLine1 />
  <ReceiptLine2 />
  <ReceiptLine3 />
  <ReceiptLine4 />
  <ReceiptLine5 />
  <ReceiptLine6 />
  <ReceiptLine1Enabled>false</ReceiptLine1Enabled>
  <ReceiptLine2Enabled>true</ReceiptLine2Enabled>
  <ReceiptLine3Enabled>false</ReceiptLine3Enabled>
  <ReceiptLine4Enabled>false</ReceiptLine4Enabled>
  <ReceiptLine5Enabled>false</ReceiptLine5Enabled>
  <ReceiptLine6Enabled>false</ReceiptLine6Enabled>
  <GatewayUserName>asdfasdf</GatewayUserName>
  <GatewayPassword>asdf</GatewayPassword>
  <GatewayId>sdf</GatewayId>
</AppSettings>>

Which it see two >> at the end.

Anyone see why it's saving two >> at the end of my xml file?

And my code errors out with:

Answer 1

It's because you're using File.OpenWrite:

For an existing file, it does not append the new text to the existing text. Instead, it overwrites the existing characters with the new characters. If you overwrite a longer string (such as “This is a test of the OpenWrite method”) with a shorter string (such as “Second run”), the file will contain a mix of the strings (“Second runtest of the OpenWrite method”).

While it's not clear from your example, I suspect the new contents are one byte shorter than the old contents, so you're seeing the closing angle bracket from the original file.

I suspect you should just use File.Create instead.