We Keep Coding

Encoding xml as ISO-8859-1

I sent an xml file which I created while serializing an object and received a response that it is incorrect and not well-formed:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
Moreover, I am supposed to use ISO-8859-1.
I assume that I not only have to change <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>, but additionally I have to create the file during serialization from the code already with encoding ISO-8859-1. Correct?
I am doint it this way:
XmlSerializer ser = new XmlSerializer(obj.GetType());
var encoding = Encoding.GetEncoding("ISO-8859-1");
XmlWriterSettings xmlWriterSettings = new XmlWriterSettings
{
Indent = true,
OmitXmlDeclaration = false,
Encoding = encoding
};
XmlDocument xd = null;
using (MemoryStream memStm = new MemoryStream())
{
using (var xmlWriter = XmlWriter.Create(memStm, xmlWriterSettings))
{
ser.Serialize(xmlWriter, input);
}
memStm.Position = 0;
XmlReaderSettings settings = new XmlReaderSettings();
using (var xtr = XmlReader.Create(memStm, settings))
{
xd = new XmlDocument();
xd.Load(xtr);
}
}
byte[] file = encoding.GetBytes(xml.OuterXml);
I used a framework to find out what encoding my created files have and when I create them with ISO-8859-1 as above my encoding checker gives me ASCII, is that correct?

I sent an xml file which I created while serializing an object and received a response that it is incorrect and not well-formed:
The  chars represents a BOM (byte-order-mark) for utf-8 files. That BOM can be a part of utf-8 encoded files. So your xml is valid if read properly.
More information about BOM: http://www.unicode.org/faq/utf_bom.html#bom1
I assume that I not only have to change <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>, but additionally I have to create the file during serialization from the code already with encoding ISO-8859-1. Correct?
Correct.
I used a framework to find out what encoding my created files have and when I create them with ISO-8859-1 as above my encoding checker gives me ASCII, is that correct?
So, the encoding of a text file cannot be determined exactly, but only "guessed" by means of an analysis. Various encodings have the same code pages for the ASCII characters, therefore ASCII is suitable as result.

c# - create and save an xml as UTF-8 (without BOM) [duplicate]

I'm generating an utf-8 XML file using XDocument.
XDocument xml_document = new XDocument(
new XDeclaration("1.0", "utf-8", null),
new XElement(ROOT_NAME,
new XAttribute("note", note)
)
);
...
xml_document.Save(#file_path);
The file is generated correctly and validated with an xsd file with success.
When I try to upload the XML file to an online service, the service says that my file is wrong at line 1; I have discovered that the problem is caused by the BOM on the first bytes of the file.
Do you know why the BOM is appended to the file and how can I save the file without it?
As stated in Byte order mark Wikipedia article:
While Unicode standard allows BOM in
UTF-8 it does not require or
recommend it. Byte order has no
meaning in UTF-8 so a BOM only
serves to identify a text stream or
file as UTF-8 or that it was converted
from another format that has a BOM
Is it an XDocument problem or should I contact the guys of the online service provider to ask for a parser upgrade?

Use an XmlTextWriter and pass that to the XDocument's Save() method, that way you can have more control over the type of encoding used:
var doc = new XDocument(
new XDeclaration("1.0", "utf-8", null),
new XElement("root", new XAttribute("note", "boogers"))
);
using (var writer = new XmlTextWriter(".\\boogers.xml", new UTF8Encoding(false)))
{
doc.Save(writer);
}
The UTF8Encoding class constructor has an overload that specifies whether or not to use the BOM (Byte Order Mark) with a boolean value, in your case false.
The result of this code was verified using Notepad++ to inspect the file's encoding.

First of all: the service provider MUST handle it, according to XML spec, which states that BOM may be present in case of UTF-8 representation.
You can force to save your XML without BOM like this:
XmlWriterSettings settings = new XmlWriterSettings();
settings.Encoding = new UTF8Encoding(false); // The false means, do not emit the BOM.
using (XmlWriter w = XmlWriter.Create("my.xml", settings))
{
doc.Save(w);
}
(Googled from here: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/xmlandnetfx/thread/ccc08c65-01d7-43c6-adf3-1fc70fdb026a)

The most expedient way to get rid of the BOM character when using XDocument is to just save the document, then do a straight File read as a file, then write it back out. The File routines will strip the character out for you:
XDocument xTasks = new XDocument();
XElement xRoot = new XElement("tasklist",
new XAttribute("timestamp",lastUpdated),
new XElement("lasttask",lastTask)
);
...
xTasks.Add(xRoot);
xTasks.Save("tasks.xml");
// read it straight in, write it straight back out. Done.
string[] lines = File.ReadAllLines("tasks.xml");
File.WriteAllLines("tasks.xml",lines);
(it's hoky, but it works for the sake of expediency - at least you'll have a well-formed file to upload to your online provider) ;)

By UTF-8 Documents
String XMLDec = xDoc.Declaration.ToString();
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(XMLDec);
sb.Append(xDoc.ToString());
Encoding encoding = new UTF8Encoding(false); // false = without BOM
File.WriteAllText(outPath, sb.ToString(), encoding);

How to convert XDocument into sequence of byte[] array with correct Indentation

I've to save xml file in to database after serialising it, this is so that the other Module that uses this sequence to again create the same XML file and use it.
Problem is with my current approach it does it but all in one line. How should I go about so that it create the sequence with correct indentation ?
public static byte[] ConvertXMLToByteArray(XDocument xml)
{
// Init Writers
StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();
XmlTextWriter xw = new XmlTextWriter(sw);
// Save Xml to Text Writer.
xml.WriteTo(xw);
UTF8Encoding encoding = new System.Text.UTF8Encoding(false);
// Convert Xml Document To Byte Array with given encoding
return encoding.GetBytes(sw.ToString());
}

Weird character encoded characters (’) appearing from a feed

I've got a question regarding an XML feed and XSL transformation I'm doing. In a few parts of the outputted feed on an HTML page, I get weird characters (such as ’) appearing on the page.
On another site (that I don't own) that's using the same feed, it isn't getting these characters.
Here's the code I'm using to grab and return the transformed content:
string xmlUrl = "http://feedurl.com/feed.xml";
string xmlData = new System.Net.WebClient().DownloadString(xmlUrl);
string xslUrl = "http://feedurl.com/transform.xsl";
XsltArgumentList xslArgs = new XsltArgumentList();
xslArgs.AddParam("type", "", "specifictype");
string resultText = Utils.XslTransform(xmlData, xslUrl, xslArgs);
return resultText;
And my Utils.XslTransform function looks like this:
static public string XslTransform(string data, string xslurl)
{
TextReader textReader = new StringReader(data);
XmlReaderSettings settings = new XmlReaderSettings();
settings.DtdProcessing = DtdProcessing.Ignore;
XmlReader xmlReader = XmlReader.Create(textReader, settings);
XmlReader xslReader = new XmlTextReader(Uri.UnescapeDataString(xslurl));
XslCompiledTransform myXslT = new XslCompiledTransform();
myXslT.Load(xslReader);
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
using (TextWriter tw = new StringWriter(sb))
{
myXslT.Transform(xmlReader, new XsltArgumentList(), tw);
}
string transformedData = sb.ToString();
return transformedData;
}
I'm not extremely knowledgeable with character encoding issues and I've been trying to nip this in the bud for a bit of time and could use any suggestions possible. I'm not sure if there's something I need to change with how the WebClient downloads the file or something going weird in the XslTransform.
Thanks!

Give HtmlEncode a try. So in this case you would reference System.Web and then make this change (just call the HtmlEncode function on the last line):
string xmlUrl = "http://feedurl.com/feed.xml";
string xmlData = new System.Net.WebClient().DownloadString(xmlUrl);
string xslUrl = "http://feedurl.com/transform.xsl";
XsltArgumentList xslArgs = new XsltArgumentList();
xslArgs.AddParam("type", "", "specifictype");
string resultText = Utils.XslTransform(xmlData, xslUrl, xslArgs);
return HttpUtility.HtmlEncode(resultText);

The character â is a marker of multibyte sequence (’) of UTF-8-encoded text when it's represented as ASCII. So, I guess, you generate an HTML file in UTF-8, while browser interprets it otherwise. I see 2 ways to fix it:
The simplest solution would be to update the XSLT to include the HTML meta tag that will hint the correct encoding to browser: <meta charset="UTF-8">.
If your transform already defines a different encoding in meta tag and you'd like to keep it, this encoding needs to be specified in the function that saves XML as file. I assume this function took ASCII by default in your example. If your XSLT was configured to generate XML files directly to disk, you could adjust it with XSLT instruction <xsl:output encoding="ASCII"/>.

To use WebClient.DownloadString you have to know what the encoding the server is going use and tell the WebClient in advance. It's a bit of a Catch-22.
But, there is no need to do that. Use WebClient.DownloadData or WebClient.OpenReader and let an XML library figure out which encoding to use.
using (var web = new WebClient())
using (var stream = web.OpenRead("http://unicode.org/repos/cldr/trunk/common/supplemental/windowsZones.xml"))
using (var reader = XmlReader.Create(stream, new XmlReaderSettings { DtdProcessing = DtdProcessing.Parse }))
{
reader.MoveToContent();
//… use reader as you will, including var doc = XDocument.ReadFrom(reader);
}

Convert utf-8 XML document to utf-16 for inserting into SQL

I have an XML document that has been created using utf-8 encoding. I want to store that document in a sql 2008 xml column but I understand I need to convert it to utf-16 in order to do that.
I've tried using XDocument to do this but I'm not getting a valid XML result after the conversion. Here is what I've tried to do the conversion on (Utf8StringWriter is a small class that inherits from StringWriter and overloads Encoding):
XDocument xDoc = XDocument.Parse(utf8Xml);
StringWriter writer = new StringWriter();
XmlWriter xml = XmlWriter.Create(writer, new XmlWriterSettings()
{ Encoding = writer.Encoding, Indent = true });
xDoc.WriteTo(xml);
string utf16Xml = writer.ToString();
The data in the utf16Xml is invalid and when trying to insert into the database I get the error:
{"XML parsing: line 1, character 38, unable to switch the encoding"}
However the initial utf8Xml data is definitely valid and contains all the info I need.
UPDATE:
The initial XML is obtained by using XMLSerializer (with an Utf8StringWriter class) to create the xml string from an existing object model (engine). The code for this is:
public static void Serialise<T>(T engine, ref StringWriter writer)
{
XmlWriter xml = XmlWriter.Create(writer, new XmlWriterSettings() { Encoding = writer.Encoding });
XmlSerializer xs = new XmlSerializer(engine.GetType());
xs.Serialize(xml, engine);
}
I have to leave this like this as that code is out of my control to change.
Before I even send the utf16Xml string to the failing database call I can view it via the Visual Studio debugger and I notice that the entire string is not present and instead I get a string literal was not closed error on the XML viewer.

The error is on first line XDocument xDoc = XDocument.Parse(utf8Xml);. Most likely you converted utf8 stream into a string (utf8xml), but encoding specified in the string is still utf-8, so XML reader fails. If it is true than load XML directly from stream using Load instead of converting it to string first.

Set the encoding of the document to UTF-16 after you have parsed it from utf8xml
XDocument xDoc = XDocument.Parse(utf8Xml);
xDoc.Declaration.Encoding = "utf-16";
StringWriter writer = new StringWriter();
XmlWriter xml = XmlWriter.Create(writer, new XmlWriterSettings()
{ Encoding = writer.Encoding, Indent = true });
xDoc.WriteTo(xml);
string utf16Xml = writer.ToString();

Here's what I had to do to make it work. This just converts the XML to utf-16
string getUtf16Xml(System.Xml.XmlDocument xmlDoc)
{
System.Xml.Linq.XDocument xDoc = System.Xml.Linq.XDocument.Parse(xmlDoc.OuterXml);
xDoc.Declaration.Encoding = "utf-16";
return xDoc.ToString();
}
Then I can save the results to the DB.