what's the fastest way to write XML

Question

I need create XML files frequently and I choose XmlWrite to do the job, I found it spent much time on things like WriteAttributeString ( I need write lots of attributes in some cases), my question is are there some better way to create xml files? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Fastest way that I know is two write the document structure as a plain string and parse it into an XDocument object:

string str =
@"<?xml version=""1.0""?>
<!-- comment at the root level -->
<Root>
    <Child>Content</Child>
</Root>";

XDocument doc = XDocument.Parse(str);
Console.WriteLine(doc);

Now you will have a structured and ready to use XDocument object where you can populate with your data. Also, you can even parse a fully structured and populated XML as string and start from there. Also you can always use structured XElements like this:

XElement doc =
  new XElement("Inventory",
    new XElement("Car", new XAttribute("ID", "1000"),
    new XElement("PetName", "Jimbo"),
    new XElement("Color", "Red"),
    new XElement("Make", "Ford")
  )
);
doc.Save("InventoryWithLINQ.xml");

Which will generate:

<Inventory>
  <Car ID="1000">
    <PetName>Jimbo</PetName>
    <Color>Red</Color>
    <Make>Ford</Make>
  </Car>
</Inventory>

Answer 2

XmlSerializer

You only have to define hierarchy of classes you want to serialize, that is all. Additionally you can control the schema through some attributes applied to your properties.