How do I set the Settings property in XmlTextWriter, so that I can write each XML attribute on its own line?

Robert Harvey picture Robert Harvey · Nov 23, 2011 · Viewed 19.7k times · Source

I have this bit of code, which serializes an object to a file. I'm trying to get each XML attribute to output on a separate line. The code looks like this:

public static void ToXMLFile(Object obj, string filePath)
{
    XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(obj.GetType());

    XmlWriterSettings settings = new XmlWriterSettings();
    settings.NewLineOnAttributes = true;

    XmlTextWriter writer = new XmlTextWriter(filePath, Encoding.UTF8);
    writer.Settings = settings; // Fails here.  Property is read only.

    using (Stream baseStream = writer.BaseStream)
    {
        serializer.Serialize(writer, obj);
    }
}

The only problem is, the Settings property of the XmlTextWriter object is read-only.

How do I set the Settings property on the XmlTextWriter object, so that the NewLineOnAttributes setting will work?


Well, I thought I needed an XmlTextWriter, since XmlWriter is an abstract class. Kinda confusing if you ask me. Final working code is here:

/// <summary>
/// Serializes an object to an XML file; writes each XML attribute to a new line.
/// </summary>
public static void ToXMLFile(Object obj, string filePath)
{
    XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(obj.GetType());

    XmlWriterSettings settings = new XmlWriterSettings();
    settings.Indent = true;
    settings.NewLineOnAttributes = true;

    using (XmlWriter writer = XmlWriter.Create(filePath, settings))
    {
        serializer.Serialize(writer, obj);
    }
}

Answer

Polity picture Polity · Nov 23, 2011

Use the static Create() method of XmlWriter.

XmlWriter.Create(filePath, settings);

Note that you can set the NewLineOnAttributes property in the settings.