Format XML string to print friendly XML string

You will have to parse the content somehow ... I find using LINQ the most easy way to do it. Again, it all depends on your exact scenario. Here's a working example using LINQ to format an input XML string.

string FormatXml(string xml)
{
     try
     {
         XDocument doc = XDocument.Parse(xml);
         return doc.ToString();
     }
     catch (Exception)
     {
         // Handle and throw if fatal exception here; don't just ignore them
         return xml;
     }
 }

[using statements are ommitted for brevity]

Use XmlTextWriter...

public static string PrintXML(string xml)
{
    string result = "";

    MemoryStream mStream = new MemoryStream();
    XmlTextWriter writer = new XmlTextWriter(mStream, Encoding.Unicode);
    XmlDocument document = new XmlDocument();

    try
    {
        // Load the XmlDocument with the XML.
        document.LoadXml(xml);

        writer.Formatting = Formatting.Indented;

        // Write the XML into a formatting XmlTextWriter
        document.WriteContentTo(writer);
        writer.Flush();
        mStream.Flush();

        // Have to rewind the MemoryStream in order to read
        // its contents.
        mStream.Position = 0;

        // Read MemoryStream contents into a StreamReader.
        StreamReader sReader = new StreamReader(mStream);

        // Extract the text from the StreamReader.
        string formattedXml = sReader.ReadToEnd();

        result = formattedXml;
    }
    catch (XmlException)
    {
        // Handle the exception
    }

    mStream.Close();
    writer.Close();

    return result;
}

Check the following link: How to pretty-print XML (Unfortunately, the link now returns 404 :()

The method in the link takes an XML string as an argument and returns a well-formed (indented) XML string.

I just copied the sample code from the link to make this answer more comprehensive and convenient.

public static String PrettyPrint(String XML)
{
    String Result = "";

    MemoryStream MS = new MemoryStream();
    XmlTextWriter W = new XmlTextWriter(MS, Encoding.Unicode);
    XmlDocument D   = new XmlDocument();

    try
    {
        // Load the XmlDocument with the XML.
        D.LoadXml(XML);

        W.Formatting = Formatting.Indented;

        // Write the XML into a formatting XmlTextWriter
        D.WriteContentTo(W);
        W.Flush();
        MS.Flush();

        // Have to rewind the MemoryStream in order to read
        // its contents.
        MS.Position = 0;

        // Read MemoryStream contents into a StreamReader.
        StreamReader SR = new StreamReader(MS);

        // Extract the text from the StreamReader.
        String FormattedXML = SR.ReadToEnd();

        Result = FormattedXML;
    }
    catch (XmlException)
    {
    }

    MS.Close();
    W.Close();

    return Result;
}

Check the following link: Format an XML file so it looks nice in C#

// Format the XML text.
StringWriter string_writer = new StringWriter();
XmlTextWriter xml_text_writer = new XmlTextWriter(string_writer);
xml_text_writer.Formatting = Formatting.Indented;
xml_document.WriteTo(xml_text_writer);

// Display the result.
txtResult.Text = string_writer.ToString();

if you load up the XMLDoc I'm pretty sure the .ToString() function posses an overload for this.

But is this for debugging? The reason that it is sent like that is to take up less space (i.e stripping unneccessary whitespace from the XML).

It is possible to pretty-print an XML string via a streaming transformation with XmlWriter.WriteNode(XmlReader, true). This method

copies everything from the reader to the writer and moves the reader to the start of the next sibling.

Define the following extension methods:

public static class XmlExtensions
{
    public static string FormatXml(this string xml, bool indent = true, bool newLineOnAttributes = false, string indentChars = "  ", ConformanceLevel conformanceLevel = ConformanceLevel.Document) => 
        xml.FormatXml( new XmlWriterSettings { Indent = indent, NewLineOnAttributes = newLineOnAttributes, IndentChars = indentChars, ConformanceLevel = conformanceLevel });

    public static string FormatXml(this string xml, XmlWriterSettings settings)
    {
        using (var textReader = new StringReader(xml))
        using (var xmlReader = XmlReader.Create(textReader, new XmlReaderSettings { ConformanceLevel = settings.ConformanceLevel } ))
        using (var textWriter = new StringWriter())
        {
            using (var xmlWriter = XmlWriter.Create(textWriter, settings))
                xmlWriter.WriteNode(xmlReader, true);
            return textWriter.ToString();
        }
    }
}

And now you will be able to do:

var inXml = @"<?xml version='1.0'?><response><error code='1'> Success</error></response>";
var newXml = inXml.FormatXml(indentChars : "", newLineOnAttributes : false); // Or true, if you prefer
Console.WriteLine(newXml);

Which prints

<?xml version='1.0'?>
<response>
<error code="1"> Success</error>
</response>

Notes:

• Other answers load the XML into some Document Object Model such as XmlDocument or XDocument/XElement, then re-serialize the DOM with indentation enabled.

  This streaming solution completely avoids the added memory overhead of a DOM.

• In your question you do not add any indentation for the nested <error code='1'> Success</error> node, so I set indentChars : "". Generally an indentation of two spaces per level of nesting is customary.

• Attribute delimiters will be unconditionally transformed to double-quotes if currently single-quotes. (I believe this is true of other answers as well.)

• Passing conformanceLevel : ConformanceLevel.Fragment allows strings containing sequences of XML fragments to be formatted.

• Other than ConformanceLevel.Fragment, the input XML string must be well-formed. If it is not, XmlReader will throw an exception.

Demo fiddle here.

Hi why don't you just try this:

XmlDocument xmlDoc = new XmlDocument();
xmlDoc.PreserveWhitespace = false;
....
....
xmlDoc.Save(fileName);

PreserveWhitespace = false; that option can be used xml beautifier as well.