How do you remove blank lines from an XML document or node using C#?

Question

I want all the blank lines to be removed in the XML below before writing it to document. It may help to know that I used the .DeleteSelf() method of the XPathNavigator class to get rid of the unwanted nodes before (and that only leaves empty lines).

    <Person xmlns="http://someURI.com/something">
      <FirstName>Name1</FirstName>











       <MiddleName>Name2</MiddleName>


       <LastName>Name3</LastName>




     </Person>

Have you tried to load such of content into `XDocument` then to save it as xml file? — Maciej Los, Mar 08 '16 at 21:47
Refer to this post http://stackoverflow.com/a/6480081/1513471 — believe me, Mar 08 '16 at 21:49
Possible duplicate of [What is the simplest way to get indented XML with line breaks from XmlDocument?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/203528/what-is-the-simplest-way-to-get-indented-xml-with-line-breaks-from-xmldocument) — har07, Mar 09 '16 at 00:42

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 08 '16 at 21:51

I'd suggest to use XDocument class:

1. method:

string xcontent = @" strange xml content here ";
XDocument xdoc = XDocument.Parse(xcontent);
xdoc.Save("FullFileName.xml");

2. method:

XmlReader rdr = XmlReader.Create(new StringReader(xcontent));
XDocument xdoc = XDocument.Load(rdr);
xdoc.Save("FullFileName.xml");

returns:

<Person xmlns="http://someURI.com/something">
  <FirstName>Name1</FirstName>
  <MiddleName>Name2</MiddleName>
  <LastName>Name3</LastName>
</Person>

Msdn documentation: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.xml.linq.xdocument%28v=vs.110%29.aspx

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 08 '16 at 22:57

Can also do line by line reading and writing.

            string line = string.Empty;
            using (StreamReader file_r = new System.IO.StreamReader("HasBlankLines.xml"))
            {
                using (StreamWriter file_w = new System.IO.StreamWriter("NoBlankLines.xml"))
                {
                    while ((line = file_r.ReadLine()) != null)
                    {
                        if (line.Trim().Length > 0)
                            file_w.WriteLine(line);
                    }
                }
            }

Outputs:

<Person xmlns="http://someURI.com/something">
    <FirstName>Name1</FirstName>
    <MiddleName>Name2</MiddleName>
    <LastName>Name3</LastName>
</Person>

This assumes that none of the elements' values is a text node with empty lines in it intentionally. — StriplingWarrior, Aug 25 '17 at 19:09

How do you remove blank lines from an XML document or node using C#?

2 Answers2