'Malformed Reference Element' when adding a reference based on an Id attribute with SignedXml class

Dog Ears picture Dog Ears · Feb 24, 2011 · Viewed 19k times · Source

Unable to sign element by Id attribute when there's a namespace prefix:

void Main()
{
    var doc = new XmlDocument();
    doc.LoadXml("<root xmlns:u=\"myuri\"><test u:Id=\"_0\">Zebra</test></root>");

    SignedXml signedXml = new SignedXml(doc);
    signedXml.SigningKey = new RSACryptoServiceProvider();

    Reference reference = new Reference("#_0");
    signedXml.AddReference(reference);

    signedXml.ComputeSignature();
}

ComputeSignature() will fail here with 'Malformed Reference Element' how should this be done?

Answer

Dog Ears picture Dog Ears · Jun 24, 2011

The approach we used was to subclass System.Security.Cryptography.Xml.SignedXml class...

public class SignedXmlWithId : SignedXml
{
    public SignedXmlWithId(XmlDocument xml) : base(xml)
    {
    }

    public SignedXmlWithId(XmlElement xmlElement) 
        : base(xmlElement)
    {       
    }

    public override XmlElement GetIdElement(XmlDocument doc, string id)
    {
        // check to see if it's a standard ID reference
        XmlElement idElem = base.GetIdElement(doc, id);

        if (idElem == null)
        {
            XmlNamespaceManager nsManager = new XmlNamespaceManager(doc.NameTable);
            nsManager.AddNamespace("wsu", "http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-utility-1.0.xsd");

            idElem = doc.SelectSingleNode("//*[@wsu:Id=\"" + id + "\"]", nsManager) as XmlElement;
        }

        return idElem;
    }
}