Removing self-closing tags in XMLDocument.Save

[David Cartwright]

Hi,

I have a VB.NET (VS2005, .NET 2.0) application producing an XML file which
is then used by a third-party product. It turns out the latter doesn't like
self-closing tags (i.e. it would rather see <CardNo></CardNothan <CardNo
/>).

Is there a simple way to tell the XMLDocument to use the "traditional" way
of showing an empty tag instead of always saving self-closing tags?

Many thanks,

David Cartwright

[Martin Honnen]

David Cartwright wrote:

I have a VB.NET (VS2005, .NET 2.0) application producing an XML file which
is then used by a third-party product. It turns out the latter doesn't like
self-closing tags (i.e. it would rather see <CardNo></CardNothan <CardNo
/>).

Is there a simple way to tell the XMLDocument to use the "traditional" way
of showing an empty tag instead of always saving self-closing tags?

With XML <CardNo></CardNohas the same semantics as <CardNo/or
<CardNo /so you should rather blame that third party tool to not
conform to the XML specification.

As for trying to change your XML with .NET tools, how exactly do you
create the XML? If you use an XmlWriter then use WriteFullEndElement
<http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.xml.xmlwriter.writefullendelement.aspx>
as that way you can ensure the <CardNo></CardNosyntax.

If you are using XmlDocument/XmlElement then there is a property IsEmpty
that you can set to false to get the form <CardNo></CardNo>.
--

Martin Honnen --- MVP XML
http://JavaScript.FAQTs.com/

[David Cartwright]

"Martin Honnen" <ma*******@yahoo.dewrote in message
news:ua****************@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...

With XML <CardNo></CardNohas the same semantics as <CardNo/or <CardNo
/so you should rather blame that third party tool to not conform to the
XML specification.

Yup. But they're so useless that if I ask them to fix their end, it'll be at
least Christmas ... and not necessarily the one in 2007 either.

As for trying to change your XML with .NET tools, how exactly do you
create the XML? If you are using XmlDocument/XmlElement then there is a
property IsEmpty that you can set to false to get the form
<CardNo></CardNo>.

I have a load of node creations looking like:
revXML.DocumentElement.AppendChild(revXML.ImportNo de(tmpNode, True))
.... as what I'm doing is pulling nodes out of an input XML document and then
streaming them out to two others.

David C

[Martin Honnen]

David Cartwright wrote:

>As for trying to change your XML with .NET tools, how exactly do you
create the XML? If you are using XmlDocument/XmlElement then there is a
property IsEmpty that you can set to false to get the form
<CardNo></CardNo>.

I have a load of node creations looking like:
revXML.DocumentElement.AppendChild(revXML.ImportNo de(tmpNode, True))
... as what I'm doing is pulling nodes out of an input XML document and then
streaming them out to two others.

Then loop through
foreach (XmlElement element in revXML.SelectNodes("//*[not(node())]"))
and set the IsEmpty property of those XmlElement instances to false.
--

Martin Honnen --- MVP XML
http://JavaScript.FAQTs.com/

[David Cartwright]

"Martin Honnen" <ma*******@yahoo.dewrote in message
news:%2****************@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...

Then loop through
foreach (XmlElement element in revXML.SelectNodes("//*[not(node())]"))
and set the IsEmpty property of those XmlElement instances to false.

That's great - thanks so much.

David C