Formatting XML - A Code snippet

Introduction

I know this is basic stuff for many here, but as I couldn't find any similar article on this site I thought Id share this useful code snippet for those not so au-fait with the Xml classes.

Basically, I wanted a quick and easy way to get from a non-formatted string of XML, to something that could be nicely displayed in a textbox (ie with indenting and line breaks) without too much mucking about.

Using the code

Simple. Just call the method and display the result, eg. in a Windows forms textbox. Displaying in Webform elements may need the newline characters changed which can be done easily using String.Replace.

The code:

using System.Text;
using System.Xml;

. . .

/// <summary>
/// Returns formatted xml string (indent and newlines) from unformatted XML
/// string for display in eg textboxes.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="sUnformattedXml">Unformatted xml string.</param>
/// <returns>Formatted xml string and any exceptions that occur.</returns>

private string FormatXml(string sUnformattedXml)
{
    //load unformatted xml into a dom
    XmlDocument xd = new XmlDocument();
    xd.LoadXml(sUnformattedXml);

    //will hold formatted xml
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

    //pumps the formatted xml into the StringBuilder above
    StringWriter sw = new StringWriter(sb);

    //does the formatting
    XmlTextWriter xtw = null;

    try
    {
        //point the xtw at the StringWriter
        xtw = new XmlTextWriter(sw);

        //we want the output formatted
        xtw.Formatting = Formatting.Indented;

        //get the dom to dump its contents into the xtw 
        xd.WriteTo(xtw);
    }
    finally
    {
        //clean up even if error
        if (xtw != null)
            xtw.Close();
    }

    //return the formatted xml
    return sb.ToString();
}

Happy coding!

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