Add Ampersand to XmlElement

Question

I am creating several XmlElements used in a larger XML Document.

XmlElement thisElement = xmlSearchParameters.CreateElement("value");
thisElement.InnerXml = this.searchParameters[key];

This works well for most instances, but if the value of searchParameters[key] happens to include an & symbol, I get one of the two following errors:

Unexpected end of file has occurred. Line 1, position 1. - if value is ONLY &

An error occurred while parsing EntityName. Line 1, position 7. - if value contains & mixed with other text.

What is the prefered way of including & and any other special symbols in an XmlElement? I suspect there must be a better way than just replacing & with something else (some sort of XmlFormat method???).

Thanks!

Answer 1

SecurityElement.Escape will replace the less than, greater than, quote, apostrophe, and ampersand symbols, which is probably all you need.

Answer 2

Why do you use InnerXml in the first place? It's supposed to be used if you have some valid markup in unparsed string form, and want to insert it there. For plain text, use InnerText:

thisElement.InnerText = this.searchParameters[key];

Answer 3

If you use InnerXml you have to guarantee that text value is valid xml. Use InnerText property instead of InnerXml.