How to serialize an XmlDocument to a well-formatted human-readable XML?

Question

I use an XmlDocument.WriteTo(XmlWriter) method to serialize an XmlDocument to a text file. I have also tried XmlDocument.OuterXml. Both output a single-line XML text which is very hard (up to impossible in case of a reasonably big XML document) to read for a human.

Is there a way to output a well-formatted human-readable XML text instead? I mean with every element starting at a new line and indentation used to visualize hierarchy levels.

Answer 1

I agree to BoltClock. Here is the sample code-

//Create a writer to write XML to the console.
XmlTextWriter writer = null;
writer = new XmlTextWriter (Console.Out);
//Use indentation for readability.
writer.Formatting = Formatting.Indented;
writer.Indentation = 4;

Answer 2

If you're using XmlTextWriter to write to the file, you can set its Formatting property to Formatting.Indented before you write.