How can I remove the BOM from XmlTextWriter using C#?

Chris picture Chris · Nov 18, 2009 · Viewed 14k times · Source

How do remove the BOM from an XML file that is being created?

I have tried using the new UTF8Encoding(false) method, but it doesn't work. Here is the code I have:

XmlDocument xmlDoc = new XmlDocument();
XmlTextWriter xmlWriter = new XmlTextWriter(filename, new UTF8Encoding(false));
xmlWriter.Formatting = Formatting.Indented;
xmlWriter.WriteProcessingInstruction("xml", "version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'");
xmlWriter.WriteStartElement("items");
xmlWriter.Close();
xmlDoc.Load(filename);
XmlNode root = xmlDoc.DocumentElement;
XmlElement item = xmlDoc.CreateElement("item");
root.AppendChild(item);
XmlElement itemCategory = xmlDoc.CreateElement("category");
XmlText itemCategoryText = xmlDoc.CreateTextNode("test");
item.AppendChild(itemCategory);
itemCategory.AppendChild(itemCategoryText);
xmlDoc.Save(filename);

Answer

Jon Skeet picture Jon Skeet · Nov 18, 2009

You're saving the file twice - once with XmlTextWriter and once with xmlDoc.Save. Saving from the XmlTextWriter isn't adding a BOM - saving with xmlDoc.Save is.

Just save to a TextWriter instead, so that you can specify the encoding again:

using (TextWriter writer = new StreamWriter(filename, false,
                                            new UTF8Encoding(false))
{
    xmlDoc.Save(writer);
}