Question

How do I serialize an XML-serializable object to an XML fragment (no XML declaration nor namespace references in the root element)?

Answer 1

Here is a hack-ish way to do it without having to load the entire output string into an XmlDocument:

using System;
using System.Text;
using System.Xml;
using System.Xml.Serialization;

public class Example
{
    public String Name { get; set; }

    static void Main()
    {
        Example example = new Example { Name = "Foo" };

        XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Example));

        XmlSerializerNamespaces emptyNamespace = new XmlSerializerNamespaces();
        emptyNamespace.Add(String.Empty, String.Empty);

        StringBuilder output = new StringBuilder();

        XmlWriter writer = XmlWriter.Create(output,
            new XmlWriterSettings { OmitXmlDeclaration = true });
        serializer.Serialize(writer, example, emptyNamespace);

        Console.WriteLine(output.ToString());
    }
}