Question

Is there an easy way to get DataContractSerializer to spit out formatted XML rather then one long string? I don’t want to change the tags or content in any way, just have it add line breaks and indentation to make the XML more readable?

<tagA>    <tagB>This is</tagB>       <tagC>Much</tagC>    <tagD>       <tagE>easier to read</tagE>    </tagD> </tagA>   <tagA><tagB>This is</tagB><tagC>Much</tagC><tagD><tagE>harder to read</tagE></tagD></tagA> 

Answer 1

As bendewey says, XmlWriterSettings is what you need – e.g. something like

var ds = new DataContractSerializer(typeof(Foo));  var settings = new XmlWriterSettings { Indent = true };  using (var w = XmlWriter.Create('fooOutput.xml', settings))     ds.WriteObject(w, someFoos);