How to get Xml as string from XDocument?

Question

I am new to LINQ to XML. After you have built XDocument, how do you get the OuterXml of it like you did with XmlDocument?

Glycolysis

Answer 1

You only need to use the overridden ToString() method of the object:

XDocument xmlDoc ...
string xml = xmlDoc.ToString();

This works with all XObjects, like XElement, etc.

Gibbs

What on earth is this method for? o.0 – Prescription

It is only for simple demonstration to have an easy link to XmlDocument.OuterXml property. – Gibbs

This now returns System.Xml.XmlDocument – Therron

@TheMuffinMan Then you're doing it wrong, since this answer is about XDocument not XmlDocument (Linq) – Insectivore

if any of your XML has & or other special characters, this will not work – Baldheaded

By my experience, XDocument.ToString() omits the XML header. Use XDocument.Save(StringWriter) instead. – Aude

Follow-up: Writing to StringWriter causes XDocument to duly add encoding="utf-16" to the XML declaration, which you most likely don't want. – Aude

Answer 2

Several responses give a slightly incorrect answer.

• XDocument.ToString() omits the XML declaration (and, according to @Alex Gordon, may return invalid XML if it contains encoded unusual characters like &).
• Saving XDocument to StringWriter will cause .NET to emit encoding="utf-16", which you most likely don't want (if you save XML as a string, it's probably because you want to later save it as a file, and de facto standard for saving files is UTF-8 - .NET saves text files as UTF-8 unless specified otherwise).
• @Wolfgang Grinfeld's answer is heading in the right direction, but it's unnecessarily complex.

Use the following:

  var memory = new MemoryStream();
  xDocument.Save(memory);
  string xmlText = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(memory.ToArray());

This will return XML text with UTF-8 declaration.

Aude

This way string will still contain &amp; characters, but header (<?xml ?>) will be here. – Goldplate

Answer 3

I don't know when this changed, but today (July 2017) when trying the answers out, I got

"System.Xml.XmlDocument"

Instead of ToString(), you can use the originally intended way accessing the XmlDocument content: writing the xml doc to a stream.

XmlDocument xml = ...;
string result;

using (StringWriter writer = new StringWriter())
{
  xml.Save(writer);
  result = writer.ToString();
}

Press

Of course it's confusing but if you're working with Linq you should be using XDocument not XmlDocument. Then it should work :-). – Insectivore

Answer 4

Doing XDocument.ToString() may not get you the full XML.

In order to get the XML declaration at the start of the XML document as a string, use the XDocument.Save() method:

    var ms = new MemoryStream();
    using (var xw = XmlWriter.Create(new StreamWriter(ms, Encoding.GetEncoding("ISO-8859-1"))))
        new XDocument(new XElement("Root", new XElement("Leaf", "data"))).Save(xw);
    var myXml = Encoding.GetEncoding("ISO-8859-1").GetString(ms.ToArray());

Flow

There is hardly any need for this complexity and copying again and again. Just use a StringWriter() to Save() to directly. – Blaseio

Answer 5

Use ToString() to convert XDocument into a string:

string result = string.Empty;
XElement root = new XElement("xml",
    new XElement("MsgType", "<![CDATA[" + "text" + "]]>"),
    new XElement("Content", "<![CDATA[" + "Hi, this is Wilson Wu Testing for you! You can ask any question but no answer can be replied...." + "]]>"),
    new XElement("FuncFlag", 0)
);
result = root.ToString();

Kirtley

Answer 6

Looking at these answers, I see a lot of unnecessary complexity and inefficiency in pursuit of generating the XML declaration automatically. But since the declaration is so simple, there isn't much value in generating it. Just KISS (keep it simple, stupid):

// Extension method
public static string ToStringWithDeclaration(this XDocument doc, string declaration = null)
{
    declaration ??= "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"utf-8\"?>\r\n";
    return declaration + doc.ToString();
}

// Usage
string xmlString = doc.ToStringWithDeclaration();
// Or
string xmlString = doc.ToStringWithDeclaration("...");

Using XmlWriter instead of ToString() can give you more control over how the output is formatted (such as if you want indentation), and it can write to other targets besides string.

The reason to target a memory stream is performance. It lets you skip the step of storing the XML in a string (since you know the data must end up in a different encoding eventually, whereas string is always UTF-16 in C#). For instance, for an HTTP request:

// Extension method
public static ByteArrayContent ToByteArrayContent(
    this XDocument doc, XmlWriterSettings xmlWriterSettings = null)
{
    xmlWriterSettings ??= new XmlWriterSettings();
    using (var stream = new MemoryStream())
    {
        using (var writer = XmlWriter.Create(stream, xmlWriterSettings))
        {
            doc.Save(writer);
        }
        var content = new ByteArrayContent(stream.GetBuffer(), 0, (int)stream.Length);
        content.Headers.ContentType = new MediaTypeHeaderValue("text/xml");
        return content;
    }
}

// Usage (XDocument -> UTF-8 bytes)
var content = doc.ToByteArrayContent();
var response = await httpClient.PostAsync("/someurl", content);

// Alternative (XDocument -> string -> UTF-8 bytes)
var content = new StringContent(doc.ToStringWithDeclaration(), Encoding.UTF8, "text/xml");
var response = await httpClient.PostAsync("/someurl", content);

Stratification

Answer 7

While @wolfgang-grinfeld's answer is technically correct (as it also produces the XML declaration, as opposed to just using .ToString() method), the code generated UTF-8 byte order mark (BOM), which for some reason XDocument.Parse(string) method cannot process and throws Data at the root level is invalid. Line 1, position 1. error.

So here is a another solution without the BOM:

var utf8Encoding =
    new UTF8Encoding(encoderShouldEmitUTF8Identifier: false);

using (var memory = new MemoryStream())
using (var writer = XmlWriter.Create(memory, new XmlWriterSettings
       {
           OmitXmlDeclaration = false,
           Encoding = utf8Encoding
       }))
{
    CompanyDataXml.Save(writer);
    writer.Flush();
    return utf8Encoding.GetString(memory.ToArray());
}

Jankowski

Thank you so much for this, it has saved me from certain madness. I was getting exactly the error you said when attempting to parse the written out XML, and couldn't for the life of me figure out why. – Vested

Answer 8

I found this example in the Microsoft .NET 6 documentation for XDocument.Save method. I think it answers the original question (what is the XDocument equivalent for XmlDocument.OuterXml), and also addresses the concerns that others have pointed out already. By using the XmlWritingSettings you can predictably control the string output.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.xml.linq.xdocument.save

StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
XmlWriterSettings xws = new XmlWriterSettings();
xws.OmitXmlDeclaration = true;
xws.Indent = true;
 
using (XmlWriter xw = XmlWriter.Create(sb, xws)) {
    XDocument doc = new XDocument(
        new XElement("Child",
            new XElement("GrandChild", "some content")
        )
    );
    doc.Save(xw);
}
Console.WriteLine(sb.ToString());

Schoolman

Note that if you have an XmlWriter write to a StringBuilder/string like this, the XML declaration will always say "UTF-16," since that's how C#'s string type is encoded. The setting XmlWriterSettings.Encoding (which defaults to Encoding.UTF8) is only relevant if the writer's target is a byte stream rather than a string. – Stratification