Summary How to Write a Comment to a XML File with XmlTextWriter and WriteComment?

Comments can be sometimes very important to understand the structure of XML files. While I write code I use comments wherever I can, so that I don't have any problems to understand the code later. In this small example I will show you how you can add comments to a XML file with XmlTextWriter.

To add comments use the function WriteComment(). You can simple pass the comment as a string and the XmlTextWriter will convert it automatically to . Nice heh? And here is the generated xml file.

Additional information

<%@ import namespace="System.Xml" %> <%@ page language="C#" debug="true"%> <script runat="server"> void page_load(object sender, System.EventArgs e){ XmlTextWriter xmlWriter = new XmlTextWriter(Server.MapPath("XmlTextWriterWithComments.xml"), null); // Format the xml automatically to a tree structure xmlWriter.Formatting = Formatting.Indented; // Write root element xmlWriter.WriteComment("Root Element"); // Write root element xmlWriter.WriteStartElement("CategoryList"); // Category is our first sub element, we can have several Categories xmlWriter.WriteComment("Category is our first sub element"); // Write first sub element of root element xmlWriter.WriteStartElement("Category"); // Write ID Attribute // First parameter is the attribute name and the second is the value xmlWriter.WriteAttributeString("ID","0"); // Main Category can be only XML,XSL or XPath xmlWriter.WriteComment("Main Category can be only XML,XSL or XPath"); // now start adding elements to the Category element xmlWriter.WriteElementString("MainCategory","XML"); // Description of the Main Category xmlWriter.WriteComment("Description of the Main Category"); // add the 2nd element to the Category element xmlWriter.WriteElementString("Description","XML Articles"); // This can be either Yes or No xmlWriter.WriteComment("This can be either Yes or No"); // add the 3rd element to the Category element xmlWriter.WriteElementString("Active","Yes"); // write end elements xmlWriter.WriteEndElement(); // close writer xmlWriter.Close(); Response.Write("Xml Written"); } </script>

Further additional information

<!--Root Element--> <CategoryList> <!--Category is our first sub element--> <Category ID="0"> <!--Main Category can be only XML,XSL or XPath--> <MainCategory>XML</MainCategory> <!--Description of the Main Category--> <Description>XML Articles</Description> <!--This can be either Yes or No--> <Active>Yes</Active> </Category> </CategoryList>

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