XML Error There are multiple root elements

Question

I am getting XML from a web service   Here is what the XML looks like    lt parent gt       lt child gt          Text      lt  child gt   lt  parent gt   lt parent gt       lt child gt           lt grandchild gt              Text          lt  grandchild gt           lt grandchild gt              Text          lt  grandchild gt       lt  child gt       lt child gt          Text      lt  child gt   lt  parent gt   etc    And here is my C  code   StringBuilder output   new StringBuilder        Create an XmlReader using  XmlReader reader   XmlReader Create new StringReader xoResponse  return          XmlWriterSettings ws   new XmlWriterSettings          ws Indent   true      using  XmlWriter writer   XmlWriter Create output  ws                    Parse the file and display each of the nodes          while  reader Read                          switch  reader NodeType                                case XmlNodeType Element                      writer WriteStartElement reader Name                       break                  case XmlNodeType Text                      writer WriteString reader Value                       break                  case XmlNodeType XmlDeclaration                  case XmlNodeType ProcessingInstruction                      writer WriteProcessingInstruction reader Name  reader Value                       break                  case XmlNodeType Comment                      writer WriteComment reader Value                       break                  case XmlNodeType EndElement                      writer WriteFullEndElement                        break                                    I believe that the error is thrown on the second parent element   How can I avoid this error   Any help is greatly appreciated

User · Accepted Answer

You need to enclose your  lt parent gt  elements in a surrounding element as XML Documents can have only one root node    lt parents gt   lt  -- I ve added this tag -- gt       lt parent gt           lt child gt              Text          lt  child gt       lt  parent gt       lt parent gt           lt child gt               lt grandchild gt                  Text              lt  grandchild gt               lt grandchild gt                  Text              lt  grandchild gt           lt  child gt           lt child gt              Text          lt  child gt       lt  parent gt   lt  parents gt   lt  -- I ve added this tag -- gt    As you re receiving this markup from somewhere else  rather than generating it yourself  you may have to do this yourself by treating the response as a string and wrapping it with appropriate tags  prior to attempting to parse it as XML   So  you ve a couple of choices    Get the provider of the web service to return you actual XML that has one root node Pre-process the XML  as I ve suggested above  to add a root node Pre-process the XML to split it into multiple chunks  i e  one for each  lt parent gt  node  and process each as a distinct XML Document

User · Answer

If you re in charge  or have any control over the web service   get them to add a unique root element   If you can t change that at all  then you can do a bit of regex or string-splitting to parse each  and pass each  element to your XML Reader   Alternatively  you could manually add a junk root element  by prefixing an opening tag and suffixing a closing tag

User · Answer

Wrap the xml in another element   lt wrapper gt   lt parent gt       lt child gt          Text      lt  child gt   lt  parent gt   lt parent gt       lt child gt           lt grandchild gt              Text          lt  grandchild gt           lt grandchild gt              Text          lt  grandchild gt       lt  child gt       lt child gt          Text      lt  child gt   lt  parent gt   lt  wrapper gt

User · Answer

You can do it without modifying the XML stream  Tell the XmlReader to not be so picky  Setting the XmlReaderSettings ConformanceLevel to ConformanceLevel Fragment will let the parser ignore the fact that there is no root node           XmlReaderSettings settings   new XmlReaderSettings            settings ConformanceLevel   ConformanceLevel Fragment          using  XmlReader reader   XmlReader Create tr settings                                          Now you can parse something like this  which is an real time XML stream  where it is impossible to wrap with a node     lt event gt     lt timeStamp gt 1354902435238 lt  timeStamp gt     lt eventId gt 7073822 lt  eventId gt   lt  event gt   lt data gt     lt time gt 1354902435341 lt  time gt     lt payload type  80  gt 7d1300786a0000000bf9458b0518000000000000000000000000000000000c0c030306001b lt  payload gt   lt  data gt   lt data gt     lt time gt 1354902435345 lt  time gt     lt payload type  80  gt fd1260780912ff3028fea5ffc0387d640fa550f40fbdf7afffe001fff8200fff00f0bf0e000042201421100224ff40312300111400004f000000e0c0fbd1e0000f10e0fccc2ff0000f0fe00f00f0eed00f11e10d010021420401 lt  payload gt   lt  data gt   lt data gt     lt time gt 1354902435347 lt  time gt     lt payload type  80  gt fd126078ad11fc4015fefdf5b042ff1010223500000000000000003007ff00f20e0f01000e0000dc0f01000f000000000000004f000000f104ff001000210f000013010000c6da000000680ffa807800200000000d00c0f0 lt  payload gt   lt  data gt

[c#] XML Error: There are multiple root elements

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