Question

I write an XML file “by hand”, (i.e. not with LINQ to XML), which sometimes includes an open/close tag containing a single space character. Upon viewing the resulting file, all appears correct, example below…

<Item>
  <ItemNumber>3</ItemNumber>
  <English> </English>
  <Translation>Ignore this one. Do not remove.</Translation>
</Item>

… the reasons for doing this are various and irrelevent, it is done.

Later, I use a C# program with LINQ to XML to read the file back and extract the record…

XElement X_EnglishE = null;  // This is CRAZY
foreach (XElement i in Records)
{
    X_EnglishE = i.Element("English");  // There is only one damned record!
}
string X_English = X_EnglishE.ToString();

… and test to make sure it is unchanged from the database record. I detect a change, when processing Items where the field had the single space character…

+E+ Text[3] English source has been altered:
    Was: >>> <<<
    Now: >>><<<

… the >>> and <<< parts I added to see what was happening, (hard to see space characters). I have fiddled around with this but can’t see why this is so. It is not absolutely critical, as the field is not used, (yet), but I cannot trust C# or LINQ or whatever is doing this, if I do not understand why it is so. So what is doing that and why?

Answer 1

You need to preserve whitespace when loading the XML string:

XDocument doc = XDocument.Parse(@"
<Item>
    <ItemNumber>3</ItemNumber>
    <English> </English>
    <Translation>Ignore this one. Do not remove.</Translation>
</Item>", LoadOptions.PreserveWhitespace);

string X_English = (string)doc.Root.Element("English");

//  X_English == " "