Question

I am seeing a difference between the way XmlDocument Load( ) and LoadXml( ) work in .NET 2.0. Given the XML document below (note the use of a right quote, ascii code 146):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<nodes>
  <node>Some Data ’</node>
</nodes>

Why does it load fine with LoadXml( ) when passed in as a string but fails if passed in to Load( ) as a document. I.E. and other XML editors also will not load and display this file.

Simplified Code Example:

[WebMethod]
public bool SubmitData(string xmlDoc)
{
   try
   {
      XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
      doc.LoadXml(xmlDoc);
   }
   catch
   {
      return false;
   }

   return true;
}

I know the code is poor but it is just meant to demonstrate the problem. If the string “xmlDoc” is not a legitimate xml document, then I am trying to get this to fail.

I can’t control the content of the XML sent to me. I just receive it and work with it through the web service. Apparently, the people calling it are copying and pasting data from a Word Doc. I didn’t design this either but I am stuck maintaining it. 🙂

Answer 1

The difference is the encoding. When loading from a file, utf-8 decoding is applied and your code 146 is probably not valid utf-8 in your case. LoadXml ignores the encoding because .Net strings do not need to be decoded. Therfore your special character is a valid character and everything is fine.