XMLWriter formatting when appending to existing XML

Question

I've got an existing XML file. New content is added to it via XmlWriter (or XmlTextWriter, doesn't matter which as both exhibit the same behaviour).

The problem:
The new content is not formatted with indentation.

Sample output by XmlWriter with Indent=true and IndentChars set to space:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<RootContext Type="ETSP">
<Root><Element1>1</Element1><Element2>2</Element2><Element3>3</Element3><Element4>4</Element4><Element5>5</Element5></Root></RootContext>

Using this sample code to create additional XML content adding it to the existing XML (<RootContext Type="ETSP"> ...):

        XElement srcTree = new XElement("Root",
            new XElement("Element1", 1),
            new XElement("Element2", 2),
            new XElement("Element3", 3),
            new XElement("Element4", 4),
            new XElement("Element5", 5));

The existing XML I'm appending to is read via XmlTextReader/XElement.Load().

Now: this happens when creating a new XML - using the same settings - containing just the generated snippet from above:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<Root>
   <Element1>1</Element1>
   <Element2>2</Element2>
   <Element3>3</Element3>
   <Element4>4</Element4>
   <Element5>5</Element5>
</Root>

Great. Properly indented, formatted - just what I want.

Now - how can I get the indented formatting when appending to existing XML content?

I'm surprised you can append data at all. How about don't do that, read into XDocument, append to XDocument, write whole thing out with indentation? — John Saunders, Jun 17 '15 at 07:30
Well - why not? Load XML using TextReader then you've got your document as `XElements`, voila.. I'll try using XDocument, thanks for the hint — cacau, Jun 17 '15 at 07:33
There's nothing here that anyone could use to reproduce your issue. `Ident=true` is ignored when there is significant whitespace written, but it could be anything. Add some code. Though I'm inclined to agree with @JohnSaunders - there should be an easier way of doing this that doesn't involve using such low level APIs. — Charles Mager, Jun 18 '15 at 08:51
@JohnSaunders Thanks - using `XDocument` directly works fine! — cacau, Jul 22 '15 at 07:40

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 22 '15 at 07:41

0

FWIW - using the approach suggested by John Saunders and going to XDocument works just fine.

The new content is appended to the existing document with the desired formatting.

answered Jul 22 '15 at 07:41

cacau

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XMLWriter formatting when appending to existing XML

1 Answers1