Question

I am serializing a string from a multiline text box to an XML. Is send the line breaks and tabs to save in the XML so when I deserialize it, I get it back looking the same?

Example – The textbox will look like:

Hello JohnDoe,

     This is a message
...
Somelines....

Thank you,
...
End

When I serialize this and then deserialize it, the textbox gets populated like:

Hello JohnDoe,This is a message..Some lines....Thank you,...End

It doesn’t have to be really pretty, I’m just trying to come up with a good way to get it back in a better format. Thanks.

Okay so the code i have is as follows:

public void SerializeToXML(List<Report> newReport)
        {
            XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(List<Report>));

            //XmlWriterSettings serializer_settings = new XmlWriterSettings();
            //serializer_settings.Indent = true;
            //serializer_settings.NewLineOnAttributes = true;

            TextWriter textWriter = new StreamWriter(xmlPath);
            serializer.Serialize(textWriter, newReport);
            textWriter.Close();
        }

Where Report is just a class with some string attributes. The commented lines are somethings I was trying to accomplish my goal.

Report class code:

public class Report
    {
        public string name
        { get; set; }

        public string email
        { get; set; }

        public string defectID
        { get; set; }

        public string fixedBuild
        { get; set; }

        public string description
        { get; set; }

        [XmlIgnore]
        public string messageBody
        { get; set; }

     private static readonly XmlDocument _xmlDoc = new XmlDocument();

     [XmlElement("messageBody")]
     public XmlCDataSection TextCData
     {
         get
         {
             return _xmlDoc.CreateCDataSection(messageBody);
         }
         set
         {
             messageBody = value.Data;
         }
     }
    }

the output remains the same (no whitespace formatting).

Answer 1

One way to preserve all whitespace in your XML is to use a CDATA section. The details depend on the way you do your serialization. See this question for an explanation in a web service context. If you serialize manually, use XmlWriter.WriteCData method.