Databases
StackOverflow2013
Postsdbo
POHow to serialize a string holding nothing but "\r\n" to XML correctly?
Body
 

Note that there are some explanatory texts on larger screens.

plurals
  1. POHow to serialize a string holding nothing but "\r\n" to XML correctly?
    text
    copied!<p>We're using <code>DataContractSerializer</code> to serialize our data to XML. Recently we found a bug with how the string <code>"\r\n"</code> gets saved and read back - it was turned into just <code>"\n"</code>. Apparently, what causes this is using an <code>XmlWriter</code> with <code>Indent = true</code> set:</p> <pre><code>// public class Test { public string Line; } var serializer = new DataContractSerializer(typeof(Test)); using (var fs = File.Open("C:/test.xml", FileMode.Create)) using (var wr = XmlWriter.Create(fs, new XmlWriterSettings() { Indent = true })) serializer.WriteObject(wr, new Test() { Line = "\r\n" }); Test test; using (var fs = File.Open("C:/test.xml", FileMode.Open)) test = (Test) serializer.ReadObject(fs); </code></pre> <p>The obvious fix is to stop indenting XML, and indeed removing the "<code>XmlWriter.Create</code>" line makes the <code>Line</code> value roundtrip correctly, whether it's <code>"\n"</code>, <code>"\r\n"</code> or anything else. </p> <p>However, the way <code>DataContractSerializer</code> writes it still doesn't seem to be entirely safe or perhaps even correct - for example, just reading the resulting file with XML Notepad and saving it again destroys both <code>"\n"</code> and <code>"\r\n"</code> values completely.</p> <p>What is the correct approach here? Is using XML as a format for serializing binary data a flawed concept? Are we wrong to expect that tools like XML Notepad won't break our data? Do we need to augment each and every <code>string</code> field that could contain such text with some special attribute, perhaps something to force CDATA?</p>
 

Querying!

 
Guidance
An individual column

Larger individual text columns get their own page to allow for proper reading.

SQuiL has stopped working due to an internal error.

If you are curious you may find further information in the browser console, which is accessible through the devtools (F12).

Reload